I managed to complete volume 1 of the Ipexpert SP series. The workbook consists of 25 sections of which I were able to do 24 on dynamips. The other section I could not do due to my dynamips labs still running the 16 port module at that point. It is a minor as it was basically some vlans, spanning tree and port channels.
My first impression was that the book will be full of mistakes and generally rough around the edges. After the first few labs it was not all that bad. To be honest the labs are quite good. What I like about these Volume 1 scenarios is that the ip addressing is the same throughout the workbook. This make it easier to get to the meat of the section without wasting too much time learning the topology. The proctor guide is really good as well. Some more verification and explanation wont hurt.
On the negative side the dynamips files supplied by IPexpert dont work for this workbook. A lot of time was spent creating a working dynagen .net file. There are also no initial configs for the dynamips topology meaning before every lab you have to create initial configs. This chews away at your quantity:quality ratio. I will explain: This workbook took 50hours to complete. Had the initial configs been available it would have taken 40hours.
To summarize: after the first two or three labs I had very low expectations, but later on the quality really improved and I plan to do this workbook again before starting full labs.
