View Larger Image	Brandon Carroll Cisco Press, Hardcover, Published May 2004, 431 pages, ISBN 1587051249
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• Enterprise Computing : Security
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• Cisco Press

• Improve security for network users connecting from home or remote offices
• Build safer, more secure and accessible telecommuter networks
• Master AAA (authentication, authorization, and account) management for users connecting from unsecured sites into the secure corporate network
• Review deployment and management strategies for the Cisco Secure ACS product line

With evolving network infrastructures, it is increasingly important that access to vital corporate resources are vigilantly monitored and controlled. Cisco's identity management solutions, including Cisco Secure Access Control Server (CSACS), address this trend, enabling security, control, and administration of the growing population of users that connect to the network.

Cisco Access Control Security: AAA Administration Services examines the concepts and configuration of the Cisco Secure ACS. You will learn how to configure a network access server to authenticate, authorize, and account for individual network users that telecommute from an unsecured site into the secure corporate network. The book begins with an overview of AAA, TACACS+, and Radius protocols. A discussion of authentication on Cisco routers follows this overview.

Each chapter includes the background of particular administration tasks for the various components of the software, followed by examples of the device configuration and possible issues that may arise. Examples will be given from the most basic user configuration to more advanced features of the product, and common configuration errors will be discussed, along with troubleshooting advice. Cisco Access Registrar installation and use is also covered for service provider implementations.

About the Author

Brandon J. Carroll, CCNP, CSS-1, is a certified Cisco Systems instructor with Ascolta Training Company, where he teaches a variety of Cisco networking and security courses. Prior to joining Ascolta, he was an ADSL specialist with GTE Network Services as well as a Technical Lead/Trainer, a Field Engineer, and Customer Zone Technician.

Sep 19, 2005     Rik Guyler
Excellent book if you want to deploy and maintain CSACS
Brandon Carrolls Cisco Access Control Security: AAA Administration Services is worthy of consideration by anybody with either a current or future deployment of CSACS (Cisco Secure ACS). While not an all-inclusive reference, this book will get you started in the right direction. Brandon takes a large motley mixture of Cisco documentation and condenses it down to a format that is informative and easy to read.

The things I like about this book:

I found Cisco Access Control Security: AAA Administration Services a very easy read compared to the actual documentation for CSACS. Brandon does not make the same assumption as the Cisco documentation authors do in that you already know this product of the concepts of this product fairly well. Instead, he takes the approach that you know very little about the product and starts with the basics.

Starting with a technology overview, Brandon then takes you through CSACS installation, configuration and then troubleshooting. There are even several configuration examples for the client devices, such as Cisco routers and switches, firewalls, VPN devices and access points.

The style in which this book was published makes it very legible and easy to follow. I found that it contains a nice mixture of screenshots, configuration examples and diagrams, which has become a trademark of Cisco Press publications. I also did not find the numerous obvious errors that seem to be typical of most technical books.

The information was given in a clear and concise manner without a lot of fluff. With only 431 pages (including index), there was very little written that was not important to the topic. After having read dozens of technical books, this was a refreshing change of pace from the 1000+ page tomes that contain no more real content than this book does.

The things I do not like about this book:

While this book is excellent for taking you through the basics of CSACS, it is not in-depth enough to be of much interest to an advanced Engineer looking to dig into the nuts and bolts of CSACS. If your goal when considering this book is to help you get your deployment up and running with a minimum of effort than this is the book for you but dont expect it to take you deep into how RADIUS or TACACS+ works.

I also do not believe that this book should have included the chapters on the Cisco CNS AR product, which is typically deployed by service providers and so a significantly different product than CSACS. Providing only a couple of chapters to this product does not do it justice. I would have preferred a quick blurb describing the product rather than dedicating two entire chapters that serve very little practical purpose.

I recommend Cisco Access Control Security: AAA Administration Services for beginning to intermediate Engineers that wish to learn more about the concepts, deployment and maintenance of Cisco Secure ACS.

Oct 30, 2004     Danny M. Clark II from Phoenix, AZ
A required read and great reference for networking professionals
Cisco Access Control Security will walk the reader through designing, installing and administering Cisco Secure ACS. I believe by reading this book the reader will help ensure a better design and implementation of their ACS solution. If you are just beginning to learn the Cisco ACS or if you have been working with it for years you will be able to take away valuable information from reading this book.

Networks today require more and more attention to security. With the implementations of dial-up, Virtual Private Networks (VPN), Wireless and other methods for access network resources it becomes more difficult to protect the network. A large part of securing the network resides in Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) and their associated protocols (RADIUS and TACACS) to name a few.

The author, Brandon Carroll, has done a fantastic job of organizing and presenting information that I feel will be valuable for both beginners and advanced network staff. If you require an understanding to how Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) and Terminal Access Controller Access Control Systems (TACACS) can be used in your AAA design, this book provides a detailed look at these protocols and their capabilities. It then goes into great detail providing a step-by-step guide to installing and configuring the Cisco Secure Access Control Server for Windows. Screenshots are provided to help you visualize the java-based web interface.

Brandon then provides some guidelines for deploying ACS for Dialup, Virtual Private Networks (VPN), Wireless and other deployments in both small and enterprise environments. One area that was specifically important to me was distributed deployment for large enterprises. Reading this chapter made me realize several issues within the environment that I currently work; which we will now be able to address to prevent a catastrophic outage.

One of the great aspects of this book is that it makes a useful reference tool. In each chapter there are a number of web links which are related to the topic covered. These include links to standards boards covering the various protocols, specific hardware and IOS version configuration guides and links to Ciscos CCO for additional ACS documentation. The author uses screen shots of the ACS menus and configuration examples. This is extremely useful and allows for familiarity when actually sitting down to perform the first software install or configuration. The extensive screenshots and detailed RADIUS and TACACS Attribute-Value tables makes this a very quick read, even at over 400 pages.

For someone currently running Ciscos ACS software and are looking to upgrade to a newer version, this book will provide you with information covering the specific versions of ACS from version 2.0 to 3.2.

Recently Cisco has come to market with an appliance that provides a dedicated platform for the Cisco ACS software. The author focuses heavily on the ACS software and does not provide a lot detail on the Cisco ACS Solution Engine. There are enough differences between the two that I believe Brandon could have had a dedicated chapter on this. If you are searching for detailed information on the Solution Engine you will need to search Ciscos CCO.

Although the Solution Engine is not well covered; and as someone who primarily uses the Cisco ACS Solution Engine; I still highly recommend this book to anyone who is planning to or already has implemented the Cisco Secure ACS. This book has been valuable addition and a great resource.

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