How to Prepare for an Exam

Preparing for the CSVPN-related test requires that you obtain and study materials designed to provide comprehensive information about the product and its capabilities that will appear on the specific exam for which you are preparing. The following list of materials can help you study and prepare:

  • The Cisco equipment documentation CD. Cisco ships all their products with resource CDs containing a plethora of information concerning the hardware that is tested in this exam. If you are not fortunate enough to own any of the hardware products and their respective CDs, Cisco's Web page contains all the documentation. This Web page contains PDFs for all the latest Release Notes of software, in addition to information about installating, initializing, configuring, and troubleshooting the equipment. It also includes configuration examples and Cisco TAC certified troubleshooting solutions for common problems. The Web page is located at www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/Support/browse/psp_view.pl?p=Hardware:Cisco_VPN_3000_Concentrator and contains information that you will find useful in preparing for the test.

  • The exam preparation advice, practice tests, questions of the day and discussion groups on the www.examcram2.com e-learning and certification destination Web site.

In addition, you might find any or all of the following materials useful in your quest for CSVPN expertise:

  • Cisco Press Exam Certification Guides This series of books is specifically designed to give you in-depth information about exam topics.

  • Study guides Several publishers including Que Publishing offer certification titles. Que Publishing offers the Exam Cram 2 series. These books give you information about the material you need to know to pass the tests.

  • Classroom training CTECs, online partners, and third-party training companies (such as the Training Camp, Learning Tree, and Global Knowledge) all offer classroom training on Cisco Secure VPN. These companies aim to help you prepare to pass Exam 642-511 (or other exams). Although such training runs upward of $350 per day in class, most of the individuals lucky enough to partake find this training to be quite worthwhile.

  • Other publications There's no shortage of materials available about Cisco VPN implementations and products. The "Need to Know More?" resource sections at the end of each chapter in this book give you an idea of where I think you should look for further discussion.

This set of required and recommended materials represents an unparalleled collection of sources and resources on Cisco Secure VPN and related topics. I hope that you'll find that this book belongs in this company.

What This Book Will Not Do

This book will not teach you everything you need to know about Cisco VPN, or even about a given topic. Nor is this book a thorough introduction to VPN technology. If you're new to virtual private networks and looking for an initial preparation guide, check out www.InformIT.com, where you will find related material more suited to learning about the topic. This book reviews what you need to know before you take the test, with the fundamental purpose of reviewing the information you need to know for the Cisco 642-511 certification exam.

This book uses a variety of teaching and memorization techniques to analyze the exam-related topics and to provide you with ways to input, index, and retrieve everything you need to know to pass the test. Once again, it is not an introduction to application development.

What This Book Is Designed to Do

This book is designed to be read as a pointer to the areas of knowledge on which you will be tested. In other words, you may want to read the book one time, just to get an insight into how comprehensive your knowledge of VPN is. The book is also designed to be read shortly before you go for the actual test and to give you a distillation of the entire field of Cisco VPN implementations in as few pages as possible. You can use this book to get a sense of the underlying context of any topic in the chapters or to skim-read for Exam Alerts, bulleted points, summaries, and topic headings.

I've drawn on material from Cisco's own listing of knowledge requirements, from other preparation guides, and from the exams themselves. I've also drawn from a battery of third-party test-preparation tools and technical Web sites, as well as from my own experience with application development and the exam. My aim is to walk you through the knowledge you will need looking over your shoulder, so to speak and point out those things that are important for the exam (Exam Alerts, practice questions, and so on).

The 642-511 exam makes a basic assumption that you already have a strong background of experience with the Cisco VPN platform and its terminology. On the other hand, because the Cisco VPN products are relatively new, no one can be a complete expert. I've tried to demystify the jargon, acronyms, terms, and concepts. Also, wherever I think you're likely to blur past an important concept, I've defined the assumptions and premises behind that concept.



CSVPN Exam Cram 2 (Exam 642-511)
CCSP CSVPN Exam Cram 2 (Exam Cram 642-511)
ISBN: 078973026X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 185

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