Customer Reviews

QoS and Traffic Management in IP and ATM Networks

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

 

 

Excellent organization in a way I have not seen in any other book: 7 parts, each with three chapters that gradually increase in level of difficulty. In depth review of all the basic concepts in probability and queuing. I am half way through it and already think it was worth it, even if the book only had the chapters I have read so far.

Dr. McDysan covers some very complicated topics, but starts at the beginning and works up to them, so that the reader can enter the discussion at their comfort level. The treatment is broad, with enough depth to provide the essential flavor, and plenty of references for further research when needed. A good QoS jumpstart that made me the local expert for the day :)

We will have to wait some time longer for a good book on QoS. This is definitely not "the" book to read. The reasons are:

* This book needs an editor. The language needs to be simplified. (e.g. a sentence in chap 3: packet networks define capacity defined in packet-or-cells per second ... What do I make out of that sentence? And this is just one example.)

* This book needs a better technical review (IPv6 header is termed IPv4 header!)

Essentially, I think, the author started off with a "noble idea" of enlightening us "kids" with some Qos concepts. (I actually bought the book after reading through the table of contents, and the author's brief biography.) The author intended to organize the book well. But, he totally blew it on contents. In the preface the author states that "a central theme of the book is old-fashioned common sense." Then in chapter 3 the author goes on to explain why bandwidth and link capacity are different and instead of explaining in easier language the actual difference between baud, bandwidth, and bits-per-second, the author rambles into data communications theory and does a horrible job of it! He does not do justice either to the math of data communications or to common sense. Again, this is but one example.

So, in summary, this book is definitely not worth wasting your time and money on.