The program starts off with several pages' worth of instruction on routing basics, but all told there are probably about 30 pages' worth of data total in Cisco Interactive Mentor Router Simulator. The data is sparse but fairly well written, getting the few points across that it needs to--and hyperlinked generously to various definitions and illustrations for those not familiar with routing concepts. There are extremely simple pop quizzes that show up, throw out a softball question or two, and disappear. The real selling point of this is the CIM Simulator, which emulates a Cisco router and allows you to fool around with it.

The method of teaching on the simulator is fairly simple--you get into the simulator and press "Play," and a cheerful female voice tells you what commands to press and what buttons to push to get the "router" to do what you need it to. A command reference is a button-click away. The exercises cover a couple of basic topics--simple configuration, password recovery, downloading images from TFTP servers, and TCP/IP and RIP configuration. It does well at getting the user to understand the basic functions of these two sections.

Unfortunately, that's the main problem with the software. The CCNA covers many more topics that aren't covered here--things like LAN switch configuration, IGRP and EIGRP, IPX, IP filtering, frame relay, and ISDN... The list goes on. You can enter almost any Cisco command and get the dreaded, "This simulator only supports a subset of the command set a real router offers; please use only the command you're instructed to," including such standbys as "shutdown," "interface," "ping," and "show interfaces." For $150, one would hope that this software would at least get a potential CCNA up to speed beyond the simplest of commands, but apparently not. Given that for $80 you can buy sets of books that will almost guarantee a pass for the CCNA exam and give you a much better router overview, this seems light.