On the old exam, Topic 105 was "Kernel," and it consisted of two objectives:

• 105.1 Manage/Query kernel and kernel modules at runtime (weight: 4)
• 105.2 Reconfigure, build and install a custom kernel and kernel modules (weight: 3)

All of the kernel topic have been moved out of this exam into higher-level tests. In its place, the old Topic 109, "Shells, Scripting, Programming and Compiling" has been renamed "Shells, Scripting and Data Management" and renumbered as 105. It consists of three objectives:

• 105.1 Customize and use the shell environment (old weight: 5; new weight: 4)
• 105.2 Customize or write simple scripts (old weight 3; new weight: 4)
• 105.3 SQL data management (a new objective altogether and assigned a weight of 2)

The old Topic 110 -- the X Window System -- from LPIC 101 has been moved to this exam and renamed "User Interfaces and Desktops." The objectives and weighting are:

• 106.1 Install and Configure X11 (weight: 2)
• 106.2 Setup a display manager (weight: 2)
• 106.3 Accessibility (weight: 1)

Topic 111, "Administrative Tasks," has been moved to 107 and two objectives have been removed: "Tune the user environment and system environment variables," and "Maintain an effective data backup strategy."

Topic 108, "Essential System Services," borrows from several other topics to create a new entity. 108.1, Maintain system time, comes from 111.6 and the weight changes from 4 to 3. 108.2, System logging, comes from the old 111.3, Configure and use system log files to meet administrative and security needs, and the weight has changed from 3 to 2. 108.3, Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) basics, come from the old 113.2, Operate and perform basic configuration of Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), and the weight has changed from 4 to 3. Objective 108.4, Manage printers and printing, comes from the old Topic 107, "Printing," and has been condensed significantly (it now has a weight of only 2).

Topic 109, "Networking Fundamentals," used to be 112. Topic 110, "Security," was formerly known as 114 and has a few changes to its weighting of objectives.

As convoluted as the changes may be to follow, what's most interesting are the topics and objectives that are in the current version of the exam that will be removed from the future version. Consider the following:

• Booting, initialization, shutdown and runlevels have been moved to the first exam.
• Documentation (which included notifying users, finding Web sites, etc.) has been removed.
• Backup strategies (formerly weighted 3) have been removed, but knowledge of many of the tools (tar, cpio, dd) has been moved to exam 101.
• Configuring Linux as a PPP client (formerly weighted 3) has been removed.
• Operate and perform basic configuration of Apache (formerly weighted 4) has been removed.
• Properly manage the NFS and SAMBA daemons (formerly weighted 4) has been removed.

Book of the Week: 'Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks'
High-speed fiber optic networks, once a dream of every administrator that seemed to swirl just outside their budgets, are now becoming commonplace. As the fiber moves from the wiring closet to throughout the network, administrators must bring themselves up to speed to keep up with the bandwidth demands imposed by video, voice and the next big thing.

Cisco Self-Study: Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks (METRO) helps make that possible. Divided into 12 and a section for case studies, the book builds on each topic as it progresses. Each subject is explained in detail and is usually accompanied with illustrations. In fact, the 12 chapters total 409 pages and contain 256 figures (not to mention examples, tables and other elements).

Overall, I found the book to be great -- with just one peculiarity. Though the first printing is April 2008, it carries a copyright date of 2004. I'll just chalk that up to a typographical error; I could find nothing dated about this book.