Customer Reviews

MPLS RFCs (Big Books) (v. 1)

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Even though RFCs are freely available online, I don't think the idea of collecting a bunch of them on a particular topic for a book is such a bad idea. It's nice to have hard copies of such documents, and you would hope there'd be something in the way of commentary - perhaps a nice introduction to the topic, maybe some commentary on each of the RFCs. Unfortunately, this book doesn't have any of that. Worst yet, most of the MPLS standards are still drafts; they haven't even been made RFCs yet. You might think they would still be published here, but they're not. Instead there are a lot of RFCs on earlier label switching technologies. Of all the RFCs in this volume, only two are concerned with MPLS specifically. While this may useful to someone interested in the history of label switching or label switching theory, it doesn't address the actually MPLS specification, which is the reason why you would consult an RFC in the first place.

MPLS has generated a lot of hype, and undoubtedly will generate a good deal more now that the standards are nearly finalized. This book, however, offers almost nothing to anyone interested in the MPLS standards. Instead it seems to have been published only to cash in on the hype. I bought this title along with a bunch of other books on MPLS, while I was doing some research on the topic. My company reimburses me for all my purchases, so holding onto this book wouldn't cost me a dime. Even so, I was so appalled at how lacking it was, I still returned this book.