High-Performance Communication Networks, Second Edition (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) [Hardcover]

Jean Walrand (Author), Pravin Varaiya (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1558605746 | ISBN-13: 978-1558605749 | Edition: 2

By focusing on the convergence of the telephone, computer networking, cable TV, and wireless industries, this fully revised second edition explains current and emerging networking technologies. The authors proceed from fundamental principles to develop a comprehensive understanding of network architectures, protocols, control, performance, and economics. Communications engineers, computer scientists, and network administrators and managers will appreciate the book for its perspectives on the innovations that impact their work. Students will be enriched by the descriptive and thorough coverage of networking, giving them the knowledge to explore rewarding career opportunities.

* Provides the most recent information on

* wide and local area networks, including WDM and optical networks, Fast and Gigabit Ethernets
* access networks, such as cable modems and DSL;
* approaches for quality-differentiated services in IP and ATM networks.

* Examines the Internet, including proposed advances for improved performance and quality of service.
* Presents a comprehensive discussion of wireless networks for voice and data.
* Explains the economic factors and technical tradeoffs that guide network development.
* Derives (in self-contained sections) the most important mathematical results of network performance

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A comprehensive view of networking technologies, their future directions, economic drivers for network growth, and analytical techniques to help get the most out of network resources. The book is very well written, and will be extremely valuable to practitioners and researchers alike."
—Bharat Doshi, Lucent Technologies

"In a field where the rapid development of technology has made complete coverage in a single text almost impossible, this book is an exception. It represents a singular accomplishment of clarity, precision, accuracy, and topical currency. Its friendly style is complemented by insights, breadth, and a unique blend of traditional and innovative presentation."
—Anthony Ephremides, University of Maryland

"The second edition covers new technologies that have emerged in the last few years. I have successfully used it in teaching at Stanford University. I believe this book is also very useful to a wide range of professionals who are trying to keep pace with the rapid developments in the field."
—Nicholas Bambos, Stanford University

From the Back Cover

A comprehensive view of networking technologies, their future directions, economic drivers for network growth, and analytical techniques to help get the most out of network resources. The book is very well written, and will be extremely valuable to practitioners and researchers alike.


Bharat Doshi, Lucent Technologies

In a field where the rapid development of technology has made complete coverage in a single text almost impossible, this book is an exception. It represents a singular accomplishment of clarity, precision, accuracy, and topical currency. Its friendly style is complemented by insights, breadth, and a unique blend of traditional and innovative presentation.


Anthony Ephremides, University of Maryland

The second edition covers new technologies that have emerged in the last few years. I have successfully used it in teaching at Stanford University. I believe this book is also very useful to a wide range of professionals who are trying to keep pace with the rapid developments in the field.


Nicholas Bambos, Stanford University

By focusing on the convergence of the telephone, computer networking, cable TV, and wireless industries, this fully revised second edition explains current and emerging networking technologies. The authors proceed from fundamental principles to develop a comprehensive understanding of network architectures, protocols, control, performance, and economics. Communications engineers, computer scientists, and network administrators and managers will appreciate the book for its perspectives on the innovations that impact their work. Students will be enriched by the descriptive and thorough coverage of networking, giving them the knowledge to explore rewarding career opportunities.

Features

• Provides the most recent information on
  
  
  • wide and local area networks, including WDM and optical networks, Fast and Gigabit Ethernets
    
  • access networks, such as cable modems and DSL;
    
  • approaches for quality-differentiated services in IP and ATM networks.
  
  
  
• Examines the Internet, including proposed advances for improved performance and quality of service.
  
• Presents a comprehensive discussion of wireless networks for voice and data.
  
• Explains the economic factors and technical tradeoffs that guide network development.
  
• Derives (in self-contained sections) the most important mathematical results of network performance

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 693 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 2 edition (October 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558605746
• ISBN-13: 978-1558605749
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,703,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A book covers everything but nothing at all, June 12, 2001

By 

e1e - See all my reviews

This review is from: High-Performance Communication Networks, Second Edition (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

This book was used as the text of our graduate level course "telecommunication networks", but our instructor rarely used it in lectures, although he mentioned that most of the content would be covered in the exams. And we finally found that he cheated us, because this text was useless to prepare for the exams. :)

I find that this book almost covers everything, such as ISO/OSI, TCP/IP, telephone networks, xDSL, ATM, SONET, wireless, etc. When you want to know something, you can always find the terms in the index, but when you access the content and you will find it is so hard to read. You spend a lot of time on it, but at last you still do not understand more.

I recommend Tanenbaum's Computer Networks is a good book to understand many terms in communication networks, although there is some mistakes, such as CRC was interpreted as Cyclic Redundancy Code. If you want to know queuing theory, you can refer to Saadawi, et al.'s Fundamentals of Telecommunication Networks. If you want to know routing and switching, you can have a look at Perlman's Interconnections, Second Edition. These books are good to understand the basic theory of networking.

When you buy a book, your book should explain the relative terms thoroughly but maybe not cover everything, and with least errors and typos. Otherwise, you will feel annoyed to have it on your bookshelf.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Forget about this one!!, December 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: High-Performance Communication Networks, Second Edition (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

I started to read this book as a text book for a graduate class in networking. I wanted to share my experience so that others can avoid the pain that I felt. If your goal is to actually learn something useful about networks this book is not for you.

Reasons to not like this book.... 1) The author does not explain in detail the important concepts. Lots of holes in the presentation of the material. 2) Almost every diagram in this book is confusing. The descriptions are not clear and the text does not help to explain them. 3) Homework problems have little to do with the text. You almost need to have another text to find the answers. Also, the problems were of little educational value. Plus, there are many ambigious questions that can have any number of meanings.

There are many good book on networking and this one is not one of them. After being discoraged by the content of this book I started to read "Internetworking with TCP/IP" By Dr. Comer, for a clear understanding of the same concepts. This book is fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone for a professional reference or graduate networking text book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The concepts are *NOT* explained thoroughly!, June 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: High-Performance Communication Networks, Second Edition (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

I am currently using this book for a graduate course in broadband networks. Like many books and software these days, this book was thrown together in fire-drill fashion. It has surprisingly few typographical errors and the chapter introductions are good overviews in terms of what services various nets are well-suited for, and how things evolved. However, this book's pseudo-explanations are consistently *incomplete* and confusing. I have read Chapters 1 through 6 so far. (Chapters 1-4 are primarily undergrad level "network-ology.")

Here are just two examples from the myriad:

The Chap. 5 "explanation" of a SONET frame is woefully incomplete and confusing, and left me and my study partner with more questions than answers. One class meeting *after* this was introduced (when we had a chance to refer to this book for understanding), there was a *mob* around the prof. after lecture asking for clarification on the STS frame.

Chap. 6/ pp. 219-220 attempt to explain how SONET LOH byte H3 is used for frequency justification. Neither I nor the TA were able to glean any meaning from these paragraphs after several re-readings (which seem to suggest that the H1 byte itself is for overflow data, which of course would make no sense --H3 is a pointer like H1 and H2), and in the accompanying figures H3 points to nothing!

Here is a point that might not be the authors' fault, but: the AAL (ATM adaptation layer) header/trailer formats in the book are obsolete according to my professor, who supplied us with handouts of the current formats.

The chapter-end problems (which we are doing for homework) are *WAY* beyond the ken of the text, and all of us are desperately referring to other texts by Stallings and others, and wearing out the poor prof. and TA with questions. It is *not possible* to do the problems with this book as a sole reference.

If you need more than an overview, forget this book. A cursory flip-through of this book would have fooled me (from the diagrams) that it contains the detail I need, but the text leaves me crying for the clarity more typical of William Stallings' books!

I only came to Amazon this morning to buy *MORE* books (this time one on real analysis since I already have a John Freund book on statistics) to help me get the next homework done! I don't like posting a harsh criticism like this, but I was appalled to see a review praising this book's explanations.