"Max Power" Book Second Edition Released!

[Timothy_Hall]

The second edition of my book "Max Power: Check Point Firewall Performance Optimization" has been released.  Fully updated for R80.10, this edition includes several new chapters along with a new foreword by Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy).  A free preview of the book's Table of Contents has been posted at maxpowerfirewalls.com, along with links to the various hardcopy/PDF purchase options.  If you previously purchased a PDF of the first edition of the book, or work for Check Point, be sure to check your email before ordering.  Enjoy!

Also I will be attending both CPX Barcelona (Jan 23-25) and CPX Las Vegas (Feb 6-8) this year (2018), and would be happy to personalize and sign hardcopy editions of the new book at CPX.  I won't have hardcopies for sale with me at CPX itself because the book is print-on-demand through Amazon.  Thanks!

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[Kaspars_Zibarts]

Great news Tim! Any special offers for those who bought the first version?

[Timothy_Hall]

Hi Kaspars,

Amazon doesn't allow authors to set discounts or coupon codes on their site, so there is no way for me to provide a special deal for hardcopies ordered through Amazon.  If the book happens to go on sale that is Amazon's sole decision.  The book's publisher CreateSpace (a division of Amazon) used to have a direct sales outlet site (the CreateSpace eStore) where I could set discounts for hardcopies, unfortunately Createspace discontinued it in October 2017 and just require everyone to use Amazon now. 

However if you purchased a PDF of the first edition (which is not sold through Amazon) you should have received a welcome email this morning, hence the cryptic "check your email" in the announcement.  🙂

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[Kaspars_Zibarts]

Haha, my bad.. who has time to read emails these days when you have to keep up with all the social media.. communities etc. All good email has arrived! Thanks and sorry for sounding cheap

[Hamid_Nabil]

Just ordered mine! Been waiting for this book for while 

[PhoneBoy]

I assume you meant to tag me in your post...fixed it

Congratulations on getting the second edition out!

I know how difficult it is to do this from first-hand experience.

[Timothy_Hall]

Attached below is a screenshot from the book that comes out a bit muddled in the hardcopy edition; it shows the mapping of screens/tabs between the R77.30 SmartDashboard and the R80+ SmartConsole.  Not pretty but I don't think anyone else has tried to visually show this before.

Also as mentioned in some other threads, I will be kicking off the CheckMates Community break out sessions at 1:30pm on Wednesday at CPX360 Las Vegas with "Best of CheckMates: My Top Check Point CLI Commands".  After the presentation I will be working the CheckMates and Training/Certification booths on the Expo floor, and would be happy to personally answer any questions about the presentation, receive feedback on my book, and sign any hardcopies.  Thanks!

[PhoneBoy]

Tim's session in Barcelona got some great feedback.

You definitely want to attend it in Las Vegas if you can

[Pablo_Barriga]

Great book Tim and cool presentation 

[Timothy_Hall]

My CPX360 presentation at Barcelona and Vegas will be publicly posted after Bangkok, in the meantime if you'd like a copy please PM or email me.

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[XBensemhoun]

Your book is awesome ! Thanks a lot Tim.

[G_W_Albrecht]

Yes, thank you for keeping up with the good work !

[Ralf_Wuestling]

Just a small demonstration about the amount of new content in the second edition.
- 2nd Edition contains 15 chapters compared to 10 in the first edition.

Examples of new chapters are:

- DDoS Resilliance

- VPN Optimisation

- Cluster XL Tuning

- Access Control Policy Tuning

[Russell_Walker]

Love the new book Tim ... Thanks!

[Edward_Waithaka]

Hi,

Where and how can one get a discount coupon for this book?

[Timothy_Hall]

For the hardcopy edition sold directly through Amazon, there aren't any discount codes.  I do not have the ability to create them, nor can I control when Amazon puts the book on sale. 

Bulk hardcopy purchases (10+ copies) directly through Shadow Peak Inc do have some discount options available.  Thanks!

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[Maik]

Hello Timothy,

Do you think that the book is also helpful for people who have just about one year of experience with Check Point and want to know more in general?

I am currently studying for my CCSE and would be grateful for any sources - long story short; do you think the book is a good addition in preparing for the current CCSE version? It's quite hard to find any books that relate to the latest Check Point release.

Thanks for any feedback and best regards,

Maik

[Timothy_Hall]

Hi Maik Dummer,

I'd say so, this is quoted from the book's preface:

This book is not intended as an introduction to Check Point firewalls; the basics of Check
Point initial setup, policies, and configuration is not covered here. It is assumed the
reader of this book has at least 6 months experience managing Check Point firewalls in a
production environment. If you are looking for a good Check Point introduction, the
3-day Check Point Certified Security Administrator (CCSA) class offered by your
preferred Check Point Authorized Training Center (ATC) does a very good job.

Specifically in regard to preparing for the CCSE exam, there is a short chapter in the courseware covering the basics of CoreXL and SecureXL so the Max Power book would certainly help with any exam questions derived from that chapter.  Performance tuning is much more heavily covered in the CCSM class though, so the book will definitely help quite a bit with preparations for the CCSM Exam. 

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[Maik]

Thanks for your answer!

I thought a little bit about it and ended up ordering a copy for myself. I think it is definitely going to help me, if not now for the CCSE then surely in the future.

[Alex-]

This book is simply amazing. Even with years of Checkpoint experience under the belt, I read it with sparkles in the eyes. Thanks Timothy for a truly great job!

[CGraffe]

Hey Timothy Hall 

Big fan of your books. I am just catching up with second edition and defo many great new tips.

I have a doubt in regards your comments about inline vs ordered layers and the "little impact" on policy evaluation as mentioned.

I was under the impression that by using inline layers, you could virtually skip big sections of the rule base from policy matching should a parent rule is not matched during initial Column matching. Effectively greatly improving performance on a carefully crafted rule-bases. Am I way off on this thinking?

Do you mind elaborating a bit more on this?

Christian

[Timothy_Hall]

Thanks for the kind words about the book.  As a general concept what was stated in the book about ordered vs. inline layers in regards to policy evaluation performance is correct, but probably requires some further context given your query.

Most organizations will start with ordered layers because they upgraded from R77.30 (or earlier) into R80+ management, ordered layers are essentially how things were done in R77.30 and earlier, and that behavior is preserved across the upgrade.  While there are some extra policy evaluation optimization opportunities using inline layers as opposed to ordered layers, the performance gains that can be achieved are minimal due to the new Column-based matching paradigm which is used with both ordered and inline layers.  So in my opinion the effort to convert an existing policy from ordered to inline layers solely for the purpose of gateway performance enhancement is not worth the limited gains. 

Now if you're creating a new policy package for a brand new gateway, or a completely new Check Point implementation starting at R80.10+, inline layers are definitely the way to go.  Inline layers streamline management and make policy editing tasks easier and less time-consuming for an administrator; please see this post from Tomer Sole‌ which states the above to some degree, and corroborates what I saw in my lab environment when doing research for the second edition of my book:

https://community.checkpoint.com/message/9675-re-unified-policy-from-a-upgraded-r7730?commentID=9675...

How will layers impact policy performance?

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Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[Matt_Killeen]

Timothy Hall‌

I found the First Edition extremely useful but bought a hard copy....

Before I purchase the PDF version of Second Edition of "Max Power" Firewall Book, is there any reason for me to wait for any imminent R80.20 addendums or updates?

[Timothy_Hall]

No reason to wait, if and when there is an addendum for the second edition it will be released as a separate free PDF.  Once I get through CPX season and my schedule starts to loosen back up, I may start looking at a third edition but that publication (if it happens) is probably at least a year away, as I am still absorbing the ramifications of the major R80.20 SecureXL changes and the new 3.10 kernel.

--
"IPS Immersion Training" Self-paced Video Class
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[HristoGrigorov]

Just checking.... No MaxPower for R81.20 yet?

[Timothy_Hall]

A fourth edition Max Power book updated for R81.20 is extremely unlikely.  However the "Max Power" content does live on for my Gateway Performance Optimization Course.   This is a live 2-day class instructed by myself that covers all the Max Power content fully updated for R81.20 including new features such as Hyperflow, and features break/fix lab exercises.  Your lab cluster is ridiculously slow due to a number of real-world faults I have introduced before class, and once all optimizations are complete by the end of class it is purring like a kitten.

The class is offered by Shadow Peak exclusively once a month for the Americas timezone, however I am running the course for the EU timezone on October 18-19 (class hours are 9:00am-5:00pm CEST UTC+2) .  Hopefully my coffeemaker can keep up...

[Mark_Mitchell]

Absolutely amazing book!