I never understand why Cisco does not want to publish some newer editions of this invaluable book! I bought this item as a reliable and recommended supplementary resource to brush up on my switching skills for R&S CCIE lab test 2007-2008, yet found it almost "useless". Explaining some concepts in more details than other Cisco press books, this book suffers from a big problem: almost all examples are presented in an old fashion which makes them unusable for new exams where "set based" and other dated CAT commands can no longer be thought of as valid exam topics. Needless to say, the same problem will be experienced by readers when they try to get them implemented in real world. It sounds like a big drawback especially when it comes to CCIE lab preparation tools, as this book is supposed to be. What I needed for the test was a concise well-designed structure in terms of main concepts e.g. STP (it did have) and many complex and reliable configuration samples which I never could find in this edition (back in years ago, not surprising at all).

By the way, If you are a great Set-to-IOS converter, you might enjoy those examples.