Customer Reviews

Content Networking: Architecture, Protocols, and Practice (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking)

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This is a fabulous book. It is well-written (enjoyable to read and sometimes even entertaining), well organized, and technically competent - it's a real delight. The book certainly is a keeper and a re-read for everyone who needs to understand how content is delivered over the Web/Internet.

If you're looking for a complete and detailed reference to the HTTP protocol, this is not the book for you. But if you're interested in learning and understanding the fundamentals underlying the Web and content delivery over the Internet, this is the book you want to read. Ever wondered why it takes seconds or even minutes to load certain Web pages or access audio/video files? The book does not only give the answer, but explains how these problems can be overcome. Hofmann and Beaumont focus on explaining the core principles and the fundamentals underlying these solutions, giving you a broad understanding that will be helpful and valuable for years to come. They master connecting the various dots and explain extremely well how all the little pieces fit together. When reading the book, your quickly feel that Hofmann and Beaumont know what they're writing about, that they worked in this field and have lots of "real-life" experience that mixes skillfully with their research background. Overall, an excellent book that should be on book shelf of everyone interested in the Web and in delivering content and services over the Internet.

Also check out their companion Web page at http://www.content-networking.com.

While the specific protocols, interfaces, and languages used in content networking will continue to evolve and change, it is expected that the core principles and concepts underlying content networks will remain valid for a long time. Authors Markus Hofmann and Leland R. Beaumont have done an outstanding job on focusing on the principles and attempts to explain and evaluate content networking in this book.

Hofmann and Beaumont begin this book by explaining the notion of content networking and establishing the key concepts. Next, the authors explain the core principles that guided the design of the Internet, which leads into a discussion of how content networking is transported over the Internet. In addition, the authors show how Web caching is used to bring static content networking closer to the users and how this helps in improving content delivery over the Internet. They also include streaming media such as audio and video. Then, they deal with the question of how user requests actually get to the server or Web cache best suited to serve each user. The authors then introduce the new concept of peer-to-peer networks, in which the traditional client-server model of the Web is replaced with a federation of end-systems that help each other in delivering content networking. Next, they extend the notion of content networking to include delivery of interactive media, such as instant messaging. Then, they go on to describe Content Services. The authors continue by bringing you the various technologies and network elements together, and explain how they can be deployed to build content networks for specific needs. Next, they provide an overview of the various standards activities relevant to the field on content networking, and explain which efforts are on interest for each specific area. Finally, they summarize their journey through the evolution of content networks and attempt to provide an outlook of what the future might bring.

With the preceding in mind, the authors have done an excellent job of focusing this book on the architectures and protocols specific to content networks. At the end of the day, you, the reader, will still be involved in the evolution of content networking; but, the possibilities will still exceed the imagination.

The Web or Internet offers access to content. But if you are a publisher of content, you might face problems in effectively disseminating this; especially if high demand is anticipated. Hofmann discusses existing and proposed ways that content can be delivered to the end user.

A big problem is of course bandwidth. Sending the same context to millions of users by sending out millions of identical messages is crude. Hofman explains multicast methods that perhaps you could use. If so, they can offer dramatic savings in bandwidth.

Another problem gone into at length in the text is time sensitive content. Specifically audio, and video and instant messages to a lesser extent. Under the current Internet Protocol version 4 [ie. the Internet as we know it], there is no inherent Quality of Service possible at a low level. Workarounds are possible [sort of] at higher levels. But maybe it will take IPv6 to fully handle this problem?

Hofman also goes into the issue of peer-to-peer networks being used to distribute content. Often violating copyright. But there are certainly other uses that avoid infringement.