CompTIA Network+ Training Kit (Exam N10-005) by Craig Zacker (Microsoft Press)

 January 1, 2013

Reading this book has helped me a lot understanding better how the networking works. This book is tailored for the CompTIA Network+ certification (and this led me to this book instead of another one, since I’m looking forward to take this certification.

I really liked the “structureness” of this book. After a brief introduction (Chapter 1) the book author analyzes the whole networking stack starting from ground up. The first chapters, in fact, are about Physical layer (Chapter 2), Data-Link Layer (Chapter 4) and Network Layer (Chapter 6). Then we find the Transportation Layer (Chapter 8) and the Application Layer (Chapter 9). We also find some really interested chapters like Network Devices (Chapter 3), Wireless Networking (Chapter 5), Network Security (Chapter 11) and Network Management (Chapter 12).

I really liked the author’s clarity and the dept of the arguments. As the last Microsoft book I reviewed (you can find the review here), I really think they should increase the number of exercises. Four to ten questions for each chapters is definitely too few to prepare an exam.

The book does come with a CD, but I have not been able to use it in any useful ways, since I’m a Linux user and therefore I can’t play CD designed for Windows and I already had the eBook.

Even if the book is written and structured for the CompTIA Network+ exam, I think that anyone that wants to understand deeply the Networking systems should read this book since it does cover all the major concepts of the Networking, as it does the CompTIA certification.

I would suggest this book to a friend since the value of the book is really high and the price is not too high. Surely if he is a non-Windows user I would tell him not to count on the CD contents.

You can find the book at O’Reilly website.

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book as part of the O’Reilly Blogger Program