CCNP Security Firewall 642-618 Official Cert Guide

If you're planning to take this exam, be sure to read this entire book. It will guide you through the proper coverage, which is fairly close to the actual exam. If any of the concepts are foreign to you, or simply new, this guide will help you better understand them. It's a massive read, but it goes fast if you've had prior experience with ASA's. I breezed through it in a matter of a week.I highly recommend not attempting the test without this guide, even if you are very familiar with the Cisco Firewalls.Although I would certainly keep the latest version always when re-certifying, I don't recommend relying on this book, solely. You may pass the test, but you won't ace it. Par for the course, Cisco Press probably rigidly limits what exactly this book can cover so that the test remains difficult. More, and I'm very critical of the outdated testing methods Cisco uses for these tests, some concepts that you may encounter on the test are not in this book.Par for the course, assessment questions in the book are ambiguous in nature, or leave you with too much interpretation, which, even if you knew the chapter or concepts word for word, even from Cisco.com, you can still miss questions here. For example, "specific configuration mode" as an answer doesn't describe anything about the ASA. It's only an answer you'll likely find in the Chapter's text of this book only. Some Assessment questions are incorrect in the Answers, probably due to lack of thorough verification, and some questions are (as typical of Cisco Press books) ambiguous in nature, meaning, you have to better understand the author, not Cisco.com to correctly answer all of them.For example of an ambiguous question, "In active-active failover mode, security contexts can be assigned to how many failover groups?" This was a poorly-worded question. The plural use of "security contexts" doesn't allow interpretation between *each* security context can be assigned to how many groups, how many security contexts can be assigned to each group, how many failover paired contexts per group (because they must be in the same group to work properly), or even how many groups can be assigned to which each security context failover pair can be assigned to, which, probably is the more accurate question. It's just a bad question, and the answers support the poor wording. You see some interpretation questions sort of like this on the exam, but there's at least one absolutely technically identifiable clue in their questions, which remove the ambiguity. Some questions in the book are like this, but not enough thought is put into these questions, imo.RESEARCH these answers against the documents I suggest below, as they can be misleading or just simply incorrect!The Kindle version has minor, but important issues. The configuration snippets require "Click here to view code". Hyphens are required for understanding, but the Kindle conversion failed to render accurate hyphen placements in the illustrations in almost EVERY example. This WILL throw you off or highly confuse you unless you view the code via each link in the configuration examples.Again, I highly recommend buying this guide for preparation of this test, but by no means do I agree with anyone else you can ace the test by this guide alone. Download the following:ASDM Configuration Guide 7.0 (or similar version) (asdm_71_firewall.pdf)ASA CLI Configuration Guide 8.4/8.6 (asa_84_cli.pdf)ASA CLI Command Reference (asa-cmd-ref.pdf)ASA (asa-cmd-ref.pdf)ASDM Demo Mode Software (don't MISS this one! You'll rave about it; requires a CCO login)

This book not only got me to pass my exam, it is *almost* a cookbook for the ASA. I was needing to "formalize" my ASA knowledge, had worked with them for some years but never had formal training. This covers everything on the 642-518 exam and does it well. Not as of 3/14: if you want the CCNP Security cert, this exam is only accepted through 12/31/14 - if you will take all the exams this year, this book is excellent but if not, get a book for the new 300 series exam(s) (and this one could well be updated, if so 5 stars for the new edition.)

Took my CCNP Firewall v2 exam last week and passed it! Used this book for my studies along with Labs and CBT Nuggets. The book is very clear and well written. One of the best Cisco Press books I have ever read. This is the type of book you want to keep handy for all you ASA engineers. Great examples and the questions at the beginning of each chapter helped me a lot. They gave me a baseline of what I needed to focus on during my studies.On to VPN next!The Firewall book is a great book and I HIGHLY recommend it!

Configurations are shown for meaningful and realistic scenarios in both ASDM screens and CLI commands, and the reasoning behind the configuration choices is succinct and readable. This is the version that supposedly covers 8.3 and up, but 8.2 is still covered thoroughly. (I have that book, too.) The NAT section is where the major differences are between the two OS versions, but the distinction is made clearer than most of what you find on the internet. These guys write well. You are advised to follow this hands-on, though. Reading about a bacon cheeseburger is just not the same!

The book contains all the information you need to pass the test, But you must read, and re-read any sections you do not have a lot of experience with. It is greatly beneficial to also have an ASA, any model, to practice Service Policy rules, ACL's, etc., for the simulation questions. Passed exam with this book and a 5505, 7/26/2013 :)David SevierMCITP Enterprise Administrator 2008Cisco Certified Network Associate

I took and passed 642-618 exam today. All I studied is this book. After taking the exam, I can tell you it covers absolutely everything you need to know to pass it.The books is relatively easy to read and understand for a technical book. The editing is good or at least I didn't notice any grammatical/configuration errors.If you are studying for the exam, I would definitely recommend getting this book.

it is a good tutorial for learning firewall.

Great Book, really well written. Even if they changed the exams I still went through it and helped me a lot learning stuff I did not know or had only basic understanding.BUY IT!

I prepared my CCPN Certification and this is a excelent book for CCPN Security examen preparation, questions, answers, tips, etc.

old satf

not all details are 100% correct or up-to-date, for the examination - leaves too many ambiguity ... this is now an outdated exam, and not much good for certifictaion but in real world practise still useful for beginners of Cisco ASA Firewall especially ones from a different firewall background to understanding the Cisco theorectical firewall design.

Book is of good size and handy if you travel and read on transport. Photos are poor though. If you depend on ASDM gui for configurations, then you may want to buy better paper quality versions.

Ich habe mir das Buch für die Vorbereitung auf die entsprechende Cisco-Prüfung gekauft. Cisco-typisch ist das Buch nahezu makellos. Ich suche nur noch nach Literatur, die sich eingehender mit der ASA-CLI auseinander setzt.Ich empfehle dieses Buch jedem CCNP-Security-Kandidaten.