Comparing Book Editions

This blog site organizes its content to match the CCNA Official Certification Guides from Cisco Press. The books – a two book set (Volume 1 and Volume 2) – cover the entire breadth of topics in the Cisco CCNA blueprint.

The top of the figure shows the book covers for the books that were current for the CCNA V1.0 blueprint, released in 2019, but replaced in 2024. The lower part of the figure shows the book covers for the new editions (2nd editions) of the books, released along with the 2024 release of the CCNA 200-301 Version 1.1 blueprint.

To recognize the covers, note that the Edition 1 book covers do not mention the edition number and do not have a lime green bit towards the lower left. The Edition 2 book covers have the lime green bit with overlaid text “2nd Edition”.

In the past, we have published new CCNA Official Cert Guides about every four years. However, Cisco now uses an annual review cycle for every certification exam. Cisco may not change the CCNA exam every year, but they could.

The 2nd Edition CCNA OCG books will likely still have a 4-5 year life. If Cisco updates the exams over that time, as suggested on the right side of the above figure, we will publish additional online material.

The table below notes the best mapping of content based on chapter numbers. Beyond that, the following are the more challenging changes to follow:

• OSPF (Part 6 in Both Editions):

1st Edition: Had three chapters (19-21).
2nd Edition: Has four chapters (21-24), with the content reordered and expanded.

• IPv6 (Part 7 in Both Editions)

1st Edition: Had four chapters (22-25).
2nd Edition: Has five chapters (25-29). Most of the new content is in Chapter 28.

The table below notes the best mapping of content based on chapter numbers. Beyond that, the following are the more challenging changes to follow:

• Wireless LAN (Part 7 of Volume 1 in 1st Edition, Part 1 of Volume 2 in 2nd Editions):

The four wireless LAN chapters were the last chapters in Volume 1 in the Edition 1 book. For Edition 2, to balance the books, I moved it over to Volume 2 as the first chapters, so they are in Part 1 of Volume 2.

• Former Parts 1 Through 5 are Pushed to Parts 2 Through 6

Volume 1 Edition 1 had 5 parts (parts 1 through 5) of technology chapters. Due to moving a new part in from Volume 1, in Edition 2, those parts are now parts 2 through 6.

• ACLs

I added an entirely new ACL chapter (Edition 2 Chapter 8)

• FHRPs, CDP/LLDP, SNMP

I split Edition 1’s Chapter titled “Miscellaneous IP Services”, Chapter 12, into two chapters, numbers 16 and 17 in Edition 2.