Customer Reviews

Networking Bible

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have never seen a book this big that brushed over so many topics in my life. In chapter 28 "Firewalls, Gateways and Proxy servers" there is 1 paragraph about gateways and it contains maybe 300 words. That is typical of the entire book. Almost NO applications ie: instructions on how to actually DO anything. I've seen dictionaries that are not about networking that have more real world information on how to get a network up and actually running.

If there is a networking topic that you need to know about in order to get something to actually function... use Yahoo or Google and trust the 15 year old kids in the forum posts you find. They have alot more applicable knowledge than this book. Sure, they might not be able to quote the 300+ pages worth of "How rj45 cables are manufactured" or the 200+ pages of "How the IEEE decided upon this protocol" that this book has in it. But, they will help you to get your network up. If that's not enough then browse the handbook at [...] or look through any major operating system's online man pages.

How can the author and publisher of this not be ashamed??? The other reviews I have read here MUST have come from people inside either the publishing company or they are friends of the author. Period. If you enjoy having a question that needs answered and searching and searching and searching... only to find that the subject is actually in the book BUT none of it is usable... then by all means get this book. If you don't believe me then, again, by all means get this book. If you want to waste alot of money on fluff and filler, a paperweight... then get this book.

I am more than dissatisfied. I feel totally let down and basically robbed. This book is at best a reference for the technical "standards" as if most of it's contents were directly copied from internal ICANN or W3 documents and yet it is being presented as some kind of "User Manual" which could not be any further from the truth. I do believe that the author has his masters or doctorate or phd because he has fully presented a mastery of what is there... but I now KNOW that he is a complete dumb@$$ because he can not or is not willing to present any of it in a useful way.

I will NEVER buy anything published by Wiley again. Period.

You need to have this book in your library if you want to be current on all new networking technologies.
This book covers network basics and hardware with the merit of connecting the two areas very well. Networking can be very abstract and Networking Bible is great at relating concepts to the devices that perform those concepts.
From my student experience many networking books leave the reader with only the dry knowledge of some networking lingo and little retention of the important networking ideas.
The Networking Bible is different than those books because it manages to keep the reader focus on the fundamental ideas without being distracted by the buzzwords.
I recommend this book to any college student desiring to really learn networking and not just pass a class.

Kavan

Not a cover-to-cover read. Of course, at the rate the field is changing, look for new editions every couple of years

The book is not bad, but from a Bible I would expect more. Some topics are explained well, but many other very important topics are described on a very high level, without enough details. This book is not for advanced reading, and for beginners in my opinion there are better books. I would recommend instead Networking in 24 hours by Uyless Black and TCP/IP in 24 hours by Joe Casad.

This book is just ok. It's not carefully written. It repeats itself. They need to clean out the material about old fashioned networks and focus on the more modern networks.