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Cisco CCIE R&S Book Reading List Course Contents

CCIE Routing & Switching

Before you can tackle the CCIE R&S lab there is a lot of information you have to absorb and one way or
another you’ll have quite some reading to do. Some of the CCIE R&S reading lists might have 10 – 20 books  Unit 1: Preparation

but I believe you don’t have to read that many. Cisco CCIE Routing & Switching V4 Experience

Where to start for CCIE Routing & Switching

In this lesson you’ll find the books that I think you should read because they will truly help you understand Cisco CCIE R&S Book Reading List
all the topics you need to know for the lab.
How to use the “Doc CD”

Useful links on the Doc CD

Let’s get started!
Lab Equipment

 Unit 2: Switching
Studying for the CCIE R&S lab is difficult, time-consuming and

sometimes a personal struggle. This isn’t CCNA or CCNP where you  Unit 3: IP Routing

can read 1 or 2 books, do some labs and pass the exam. It will take a  Unit 4: RIP

LOT of your personal time to study so you need a battle plan.  Unit 5: EIGRP

 Unit 6: OSPF
Your CCIE Lab Success Strategy, The Non-Technical Guide Book helps  Unit 7: BGP
with everything non-technical that is related to your CCIE journey. It
 Unit 8: Multicast
gives you examples to create a study schedule, timetables but also
 Unit 9: IPv6
lets you think about how to organize your personal life while you
 Unit 10: Quality of Service
study for the lab. The book has plenty of useful tips and it is also
 Unit 11: Security
very inspiring to read the story of others who already finished their
 Unit 12: System Management
CCIE journey.
 Unit 13: Network Services

 Unit 14: MPLS

Before you even think about the lab exam you need to get the CCIE

written exam out of the way. Without it, you can’t even book the lab
so make sure you pass the written exam so you can focus on your
real goal, the lab.

If you passed the CCNP exams then there are a couple of topics that
you haven’t seen before like QoS and Multicast. The CCIE Routing
and Switching Certification Guide covers all the exam blueprints so
use it to study and pass the written exam.

This is the fourth edition but the fifth edition is right around the
corner.

Routing TCP/IP Volume 1 is one of the classics on many CCIE R&S


reading lists. I really enjoy Jeff Doyle’s writing style because he has a
lot of configuration examples and explanations for show commands.
This book covers routing in general but also RIP, OSPF, EIGRP and IS-
IS.

You don’t have to know about RIP / IS-IS anymore for CCIE R&S but
the sections on OSPF and EIGRP are still great to read. There is also a
chapter about IPv6 but I think this might be a bit outdated by now
(the book was written in 2005).

The second book by Jeff Doyle called Routing TCP/IP Volume 2 is also

great to read. This book covers BGP, NAT and Multicast. If you just
did CCNP then multicast is probably new to you. This book will help
you get started to learn multicast. There is also a chapter about IPv6
but I would recommend to read another book for that (don’t worry
it’s in this reading list).

Simply said, the Cisco OSPF Command and Configuration Handbook


is probably the best book on CCIE level that explains everything you
need to know about OSPF. It’s a big book (845 pages) so it teaches
you a lot more about OSPF than the two routing TCP/IP books from
Jeff Doyle or the Cisco Press Certification Guide. ‘

OSPF is an important topic on the lab so it’s worth your time to read
this beast.

This is another book I really enjoyed to read. Sam Halabi’s Internet


Routing Architectures (Second Edition) is all about BGP. Simply said,
everything you need to know about BGP is in this book. It has great
explanations, scenarios and configuration examples.

This book is something different compared to the other CCIE R&S


books. Troubleshooting IP Routing Protocols explains what can go
wrong with protocols like EIGRP, OSPF, PIM (Multicast) and BGP and
then explains how to solve it.

For example, for EIGRP it will first show all the reasons why EIGRP
doesn’t establish a neighbor adjacency and once that is fixed, it will
show different reasons why some prefixes are not showing up in the
topology or routing table.

Great to read to become better at troubleshooting!

If you read the CCIE Routing & Switching Certification guide and the

Routing TCP/IP volume 2 book you already learned a thing or two
about multicast. Developing IP Multicast Networks takes your
multicast knowledge all the way up to CCIE R&S level.

It explains PIM sparse, dense and sparse-dense mode in depth but

also inter-domain multicast routing. It’s not a very thick book (562
pages) and some of the chapters that cover DVMRP (Distance Vector
Multicast Routing Protocol) you can skip because it’s not on the CCIE
R&S blueprint.
QoS (Quality of Service) is a difficult topic to master and there’s a ton

of stuff you need to understand for CCIE R&S. Originally, the Cisco
Qos Exam Certification Guide by Wendell Odom was written for the
old CCIP track (it was replaced by CCNP Service Provider) which had a
QoS exam.

This book explains all the QoS mechanisms in detail and still covers
everything you should know for the lab.

IPv6 Fundamentals, A Straightforward Approach to Understanding


IPv6 is a good book because it covers things like IPv6 addressing and
the routing protocols you need to know for the lab…RIPng, EIGRP,
OSPFv3 and some of the tunneling techniques likes ISATAP and 6to4.

Cisco added a lot of IPv6 in the routing & switching track since the
latest revision (march 2013) of CCNA. If you haven’t really caught up
with IPv6, make sure you read this book.

MPLS Fundamentals teaches you a lot more than what you need to

know for the CCIE R&S lab. It’s not just the “fundamentals” but this
book takes you to an advanced level of MPLS.

You will learn a lot about MPLS from this book, perhaps even more
than what you are required to know for the CCIE R&S lab exam.

That’s the end of my reading list. There are plenty of books but I believe these are really worth your time!
Keep in mind that only reading isn’t going to get you any closer to beating the lab. Make sure you configure
many of the things that you read in these books yourself so you get familiar with the commands and
configurations.

You might have noticed that I don’t have any switching books in this list. I would like to add one, but to be
honest I can’t really name a book that is worth adding. Cisco Press has a book called Cisco LAN Switching but
it’s really outdated (still has CatOS commands) and the newer version of it isn’t complete enough for CCIE
R&S.

Version 5 of the CCIE lab is also completely virtual so there’s no point learning “platform specific” topics like
we had to do in version 4 with the Cisco Catalyst 3560 switches.

I hope this list is useful to you. Feel free to share it with your friends. If you feel I should add or remove any
of the books…please share it in our forum.

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Routing & Switching
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Forum Replies
ReneMolenaar

Hi Hosam,

Not yet, I plan to do it in a few months.

Rene

system

Hi Rene, good work

I totally agree with your list but I would add perhaps the best book ever written from ciscopress:

The CCNP Practical Switching ---- Justin Menga - was written in 2003 but it is so great that it is still useful ! I’ve never read anything better … I do not understand why it is almost unknown
…

For the method and strategies the best book is CCIE R/S by Bruce Caslow – out of date but the strategy (checklist - spot the issue - analisys skills ) is amazing !

system

I have a question…does the date a book is published influence your decision whether or not to read it? A couple of the books on this list were written in the early 2000s. Is the
information still relevant? I know OSPF probably hasnt undergone major changes in the past decade, but I cant help but wonder…

ReneMolenaar

Hi Nick,

Networking has been one of the fields in IT that hasn’t changed much. Some of these books are old but still relevant and you will learn a lot from them. Don’t let the date fool you

Rene

advantiumx

Good Morning RENE,

In preparing for RS V5, is rank rentals better compared to building a lab in GNS3

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