Customer Reviews

Rick Gallaher's MPLS Training Guide: Building Multi Protocol Label Switching Networks

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having read DOZENS of IT textbooks and glossaries and how-to guides, and knowing intimately the miserable vacuum that IT books tend to comprise (in terms of both rigid didactics and MENSA-marinated peacock preening), I will say that "Rick Gallaher's MPLS Training Guide" presents a welcome alternative -- finally. While there is (and will be) much more to discover about MPLS than is discussed in this primer, the beauty of this book is that the reader doesn't have to endure hundreds of pages of arrogance in order to learn something. Gallaher respects both the reader and the learning curve -- as though he's sharing the information because he believes that it should be shared, rather than revealing it because the reader knows some secret handshake -- and manages successfully to sidestep the self-indulgence and garish elitism that so often sinks IT books. In dismantling the us-them barrier between MPLS concepts and newcomers, Rick Gallaher has put some oxygen into the process of IT learning.

This is a brilliant book, because Rick Gallaher makes MPLS very clear and easy to understand! The book is LOADED with LOTS of excellent diagrams, and Rick puts the whole thing together with great, simple, and clear explanations! Rick is also one of the few writers who clearly understand that over-engineering bandwidth does not solve the QoS problems! MOST EXCELLENT!!!

This is a wicked intense manual. I was given this book as a holiday gift last year, and I found it to be very intense and full of good metaphors and intelligent information. This year, I'm using the book as a training guide fro the students in my class starting in January. And I've asked for another copy for the holidays (this time to highlight allt he important analogies!)

I found this book to be an outstanding introduction to a very complex - and often misunderstood - technology. Extremely helpful and highly recommended.

MPLS stands for Multiprotocol Label Switching. It is a complicated system of nodes, networks, allocations, routes, and databases. Rick Gallaher's Guide reads like a Spanish 101 textbook. Yes, it's great to know the difference between a physical, a data link, and network layers, but at the same time, it's a whole lot of material to take in at once. This isn't a book you can cram into your head in one sitting. It requires (as with Spanish 101) a semester to get it right. There are terms you have to practice. Acronyms you have to learn and whole slew of words that aren't exactly the easiest things to remember. That is a fault of the subject matter jargon and not the fault of the manual. Gallaher's Guide is a solid learning tool, and I think would work perfectly with a mentor or as part of an intructional class. By itself, it's more like reading a spanish textbook, without ever hearing the language spoken.

Excellent Book! Well written and easy to understand. I love it!

Great information in this book and well presented. There are some serious mistakes in here that could cause less informed readers to stumble however. Needs a good editing.

Finally a techical book with valuable information written to be understood by any reader!

Alright, I'm not going to try and impress you with all my fancy-pants knowledge about MPLS, they are many more people smarter than I am about the subject. But, I read this book, and I liked it. It's hard material made easy. I would have liked some full color pictures and a glossy more textbook style format. But that's it. It takes the material seriously, and it could have used some more humor to add a bit of levity, but as I see it, this book isn't just a geek manual, it's a geek bible.

This is an excellent reference or perhaps a source for learning about MPLS, but be aware that the author presumes a rather high level of expertise in the underlying network technology, particularly in the area of current routing protocols. This isn't a drawback, as long as the prospective buyer is aware of this.