Efren Estevez said
This is an excellent book on a huge topic. Networking is so vast someone could write 10,000 pages and not cover what they need to, yet an impressive amount of ground is covered here. Find out how to block spyware with HOSTS, how to configure TCP/IP, or how ARP fits into the stack. There's a fascinating discussion in chapter 11 on hybrid peer-to-peer networking that develops from the early Napster model to BitTorrent protocols and ends at The Pirate Bay. It's sections like these that make this book not only useful, but a pleasure to read.
Brockster said
Very Readable, Outstanding Book
This book was a very pleasant surprise, it is both easy to understand and contains a lot of in depth information on topics that interested me. Contained in this book are the introductory topics such as architecture and topologies that you need to understand modern networking, presented along with examples that extend the concepts to current networking designs.
Among the chapters I liked the most were the ones on network discovery and mapping, bandwidth and throughput, and particularly the one on modern routing. Each of these chapters not only explains the underlying theory involved, but shows how the industry applies the different technologies to make modern networking possible. Signaling theory, sampling, multiplexing, traffic engineering, and other complex topics were introduced in a way that made me feel that I finally understood them for the first time. The discussion wasn't dumbed down, but started at an introductory level and proceeded to very advanced treatments. I think it is a testament to the quality of the writing that the author's approach worked so well.
The first part of the book is on theory, the second on hardware, and the third part is on system types. Hardware is presented on a practical level with enough theory to be able to understand how the hardware is deployed. I like the discussion of what a network interface is quite a lot. It's nice to find topics such as home networking, peer-to-peer networks, personal LANs, LANs, WANs, WiFi, SANs, and high performance networking discussed and containing up-to-date information. There are presentations on topics such as The Onion Router (TOR) network, torrents, and many other topics that I haven't seen in any other networking book.
I wasn't as impressed with the TCP/IP protocol treatment, it was more general than I would have liked and not as detailed. However, all of the requisite topics are there and if you are new to the subject the information will get you up to speed. I've never really understood how storage networks relate to regular networks, this book clarified the relation between the two completely. I loved the chapters on streaming media, telephony and VoIP as they contained many examples of real world systems that I've worked with on my own networks. The network security chapters are also good, particularly the firewall chapter.
I would have preferred to have a larger section on network diagnostics and on network management. These are complex issues that are invaluable. Perhaps in upcoming editions the author will consider expanding these topics. As it stands this is a pretty long book, nearly 900 pages in length. I think that this is the best general networking book available, and that if you are going to buy one networking book and keep it on your shelf that this is the one to have. It is probably the best networking book of the current crop, and I'm glad I found it.
Jeremy Moskowitz said
In college, I took some "Graduate Level" courses. One was on networking. We went in detail to "old and crusty" junk like the Aloha protocol (useful only for historic reasons, now) and other arcane junk. Then I got a hold of Barrie's new book. And what I love about it is that all the information is practical and up to date about MODERN NETWORKING. Yes, there's some history now and again, but then we rocket up to practical modern networking. Yes, you'll get your "subnetting" formulas in this book, but there's also a lot more to networking than just that stuff. Think bigger, like Barrie has, and you'll learn about other kinds of networking you might not immediately think about; like Storage Networking (great for someone like me, who doesn't dabble in that too much, but might need to someday), the underlying protocols for mail transport, streaming media, telephony/VOIP and more. Networking is a big place, and Barrie brings it to you. If you need a good overall book with various networking types and examples, check it out. This book has something for everyone.
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