Customer Reviews

RFID Essentials (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))

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Wanting to get smarter about Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), I welcomed the opportunity to read some new titles on the topic. I started reading the first of these, RFID Essentials by Bill Glover and Himanshu Bhatt (2006, O'Reilly, 276 Pages, ISBN 0596009445), not knowing what to expect. What I walked away with was not only a high level understanding of the technical aspects of RFID, but also an excellent discussion of the compliance, governance, privacy and security issues that surround its expanded growth and use. If there is a title that truly matches its content, this would be it.

The authors write that they undertook this book because there was no title like it on the market: a book that could target readers in between senior management and electrical engineers. As the child of an old-school software engineer with minimal knowledge on the topic, I was eager to accept this as their goal.

The book begins with an introduction to RFID. In doing this, they break down the use of the technology into distinct eras, with the compliance era being the current time frame. Tracking back to the post-war 1940's, they walk through an overview of how RFID came to be with the birth of transistors. Fast-forwarding to the compliance era, driven by vendors such as Wal-Mart, they seek to explain how most RFID-based activities meet up with traditional compliance projects, with the emphasis being on meeting requirements with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). They then look at the "could be" as RFID-enabled enterprises come on line. They look at the various RFID application types, considerations for each of these types, and implementation of these types. They conclude this chapter wit an outline of the challenges, as well as some RFID adoption guidelines.

Chapter 2 of the book covers an overview of a "RFID Architecture". In this chapter, the authors walk through sequential items that need to be considered when looking at the implementation of an architecture. If there is an important lesson to be taken from this chapter, it would be the need to focus on business requirements.

Chapter 3 focuses on RFID Tags. They walk through basic tag capabilities, physical characteristics of tags, power sources, the "air interface", and more. They key in on the how and when to use various types of tags. A key understanding of this chapter is to look beyond the hype and at the realities. In chapter 4, they cover tag protocols. This discussion begins with a discussion of RFID Protocol terms and concepts. They then discuss how tags store data, as well as tag features that address security and privacy.

Starting in Chapter 5, the authors begin their discussion of readers and printers. This chapter includes important discussions of the types of readers that are available, and how to determine which ones make the best sense for a RFID implementation. Chapter 6 extends this discussion to include reader protocols.

From a business perspective, Chapter 7 offers insight into the important topic of data integration through middleware. A bit more technical in depth, this chapter covers issues associated with polling and managing the data provided by tags. Aside from the "commercial" for their employer (Sun), they do a good job covering high level discussions of middleware considerations, laced with technical content for systems architects to start their thinking. This line of thought continues in Chapter 8 in their coverage of the RFID Information Service.

Chapter 9 gets into the sensitive topic of manageability. Because RFID lives on the edge and the architecture has the potential to be massive in size, there are a number of areas that need to be planned for, including automation, The authors cover this with discussions of required capabilities, as well a standards and technologies.

Chapter 10 gets into a topic near and dear to my heart: privacy and security. The authors, while discussing the fact that public reaction to RFID is based on a great deal of speculation and misinformation, acknowledge that public perception will win, Without managing that perception with the realities of controls, the enterprise implementing RFID introduces additional risk into the environment. Unlike the authors of another RFID title I will be reviewing this week, they take a low-key, non-reactionary approach to this issue. This allows for the reader to think about the issues without being broad-sided by fear,uncertainty and doubt.

The book wraps up with a discussion of RFID futures in Chapter 11.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book should be read by anybody who needs to get up to speed quickly on RFID technology and issues. This includes business managers and systems architects. It is also an excellent resource for information technology auditors who need to gain in understanding of the technology (in fact, it can serve as the basis for developing the skeleton of a RFID audit plan, fleshed out with more details later.

The book is not designed for high-end tech heads or people who want to look at specific ERP-type applications. It was not written for this audience.

Scorecard

Eagle on a long par 5

I've read several RFID books and this one is excellent. Good overview, plenty of detail, well organized and well written (i.e. readable).

An excellent book on RFID system architecture and design. Covers wide range of topics including tags, tag protocols, readers and printers, reader protocols and RFID middleware. The book has a chapter on RFID privacy related issues as well. Excellent overview of every aspect of RFID technology except field and antenna design. Best way to get yourself introduced to the growing field of RFID tags and get quick overview about every aspect of the technology.

O'Reilly books tend to be informative and to the point. This book is no different. It's does exactly what the title says - provides you with the information essential to learn about RFID systems.

The authors explain the essential concepts of RFID systems starting with the physical layer and build on it. In a whirlwind fashion this book covers how tags work, how tags and reader communicate, how readers work, RFID middleware, data management, system manaegement and application intergration. The book does a remarkable job of explaining some of the more complex concepts like backscatter, tag encodings and event filtering. The concepts are then tied into architectural considerations and recommendations. RFID is a broad topic and this book offers something for everyone.

What I liked the most about this book is that it steers clear of the hype that seems to have surrounded the RFID market. Highly recommended!

Chapter Overview:

01. Introduction to RFID
02. RFID Architecture
03. Tags
04. Tag Protocols
05. Readers And Printers
06. Reader Protocols
07. RFID Middleware
08. RFID Information Service
09. Manageability
10. Privacy And Security
11. The Future

This book is a nice look at RFID technology. Where it's been, at, coming, and going. For anyone that wants to learn more about the details of RFID and why it's an important technology in today's world, pick up this book but beware this this isn't geared towards the average person on the street (technical).

**** RECOMMENDED

This is not a software API reference. This is a walkthrough of the architecture of RFID from the historical, through the hardware, and into the application of it. There is no code here, but there is a lot of great material on how RFID can be used within an application. A must read for anyone looking to use or deploy RFID.

I found this book one of the top two books in the field of RFID; the othe rone being RFID+ by Dr. Paul Sanghera. This book offers a comprehensive coverage of the RFID topics. But if you are a beginner, you should read Dr. Sanghera's book befroe reading this one.
Excellent book; highly recommended.

As a person new to RFID, I was looking for a book that covers the scope of an RFID system and focuses in particular on key architectural considerations, seeded by pragmatic insights from designing and deploying such systems in the real world. That is what this books does, in a well-written and well-illustrated manner.

For me, it helped to demystify the various components of an RFID system and how they interact with each other, giving an appropriate amount of detail on each element. I also like the coverage of how to integrate RFID with the rest of an enterpise architecture. Overall, I'd say it is the best of the RFID books I've found.

Based on the date, I knew this book would not say anything about NFC standard. I bought it hoping it would include some discussion of ISO 14443 and its relation to Mifare, but apparently those standards came out after the book was published.

This book is great it has everithing you want to know about rfid thanks