The following are my own personal opinions and observations and are not
meant to represent the official views of the company that I work for.
I have recently passed CVOICE 1.0
A few personal comments:
The exam I sat was based very heavily upon CVOICE course notes.
So a set of CVOICE course notes are essential.
It is not too difficult. No where near as much material as for ACRC.
There
are a lot of type in the command 'letter perfect' questions (about 14 -
20 ish in my case) No problems if you can do show & configure basic voice
over FR, ATM, & IP.
1) CVOICE is Voice over Frame Relay (significant part), ATM (some
questions), and IP (of course).
2) The 640-447 CVOICE exam is on the CVOICE v1.0 course.
(The CVOICE notes may not be the best introduction to VoN but they are
the gospel if you want to pass CVOICE. The lecturer on the course that I
attended skipped some very significant sections of the notes. You need
to study all chapters! It is helpful if you can get 'hands on' with the
full range of kit ie 26xx/36xx, 3810, & 5300 and know their main
features).
I attended the old v1.0 CVOICE. There is a new version
available/about to be available that is reputed to be an improvement. I
found the CVOICE 1.0 course a bit primitive and out of date. It was
really aimed at the bottom end of the market; 2-4 voice ports perhaps up
to 60. Essentially
aimed at Branch Office / Medium Corporate connect and not at Carrier Grade
solutions.
Watch out for a very strong USA telephony bias. I am not sure that they
have ever heard of E1 CAS, AC15, nor DPNSS - More of a problem if you
come from Europe.
Though remember it's Cisco's course, it's their exam and if you want to
pass ....
Other sources have better explanations of the concepts.
BOOKS
======
The books that I found are all VoIP and on the whole quite good though
none of them were CVOICE study guides.
Be aware that CVOICE is Voice over Frame Relay, ATM, & IP - not just
VoIP.
Cisco Voice over IP - Elliot Lewis ISBN 1-928994-03-2
A good introduction to intermediate level book on VoIP; includes
some configs. Not very good for CVOICE exam - too much out of scope
material. Does not cover telephony, VoFR, VoATM in enough detail for
CVOICE. (But to be fair it claims to be a VoIP book not a CVOICE study
guide.) Covers : H.323, Gatekeepers, Selsius AVVID, Cisco Call Manager
(Soft PBX) & Fax over IP - This is useful material but are all OT as far
as CVOICE 1.0. Solutions are aimed mainly at Branch Office / Corporate
connections and not Carrier Grade. Does not particularly address the
issues of serialisation delay and the various forms of link fragmentation.
In short quite a good introductory book with some good explanations as
far as it goes - But not a CVOICE study guide.
Cisco Packetised Voice & Data - Robert Caputo ISBN
Excellent introduction to intermediate level coverage of VoN
technologies and concepts. Includes a lot of example configs.
Particularly good introduction to analogue telephony, though like most
books very much biased to USA telephony. Excellent coverage of QoS
issues particularly for VoIP carried over Frame Relay. Good introduction
to Dial Plans and Hunt Groups. Aimed at medium scale solutions, weak on
coverage of Carrier Grade solutions.
Not very good for CVOICE exam - too much out of scope material and weak
on its coverage of VoFR and VoATM.
In short a good introductory / intermediate book worth reading - But not
a CVOICE study guide.
Voice over IP Fundamentals - Jonathan Davidson ISBN 1-57870-168-6
A good intermediate level VoIP concepts and principles book. Very few
example configs. Not very good for CVOICE exam - too much out of scope
material, goes into too much depth and is too advanced.
In developing your understanding of VoIP - excellent. Very good if you
want to understand the more advanced concepts or as a VoIP reference
guide. It has good coverage of telephony concepts particularly in the
Enterprise, including ISDN, Q.931, QSIG,& SS7. It includes a substantial
introduction to and discussion of Qos issues. Excellent coverage of
H.323, gatekeepers and virtual switches.
Certainly well worth reading and keeping as a reference book. But is
not a CVOICE study guide.
If you have a limited budget I would buy Caputo's book. If you want to
go further then Davidson's definitely has a place on my bookshelf.
Peter
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