Customer Reviews

Routing in the Internet

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

 

 

I bought this book with high hopes. Huitema's first edition was exceptional, covering in detail protocols in use on the Internet at the time. What it lacked in theory, it made up for in practical applicability. When combined with Radia Perlman's _Interconnections (1st Edition)_ and access to the IETF RFC database, readers had access to all the information they could ever need about Internet routing.

Then Perlman's 2nd edition was released. What _Interconnections_ had lacked before in practical details is more than addressed in that amazing book. One might hope that Huitema's 2nd edition would catch up to Perlman's in theoretical detail, making both books equivalent references for the field of Internet routing.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Huitema's second book reads much like the first. The "2nd Edition" enhancements seem to center on coverage of "new technologies" such as label switching and quality of service. None of the background that _Routing on the Internet_ lacked in the first edition is made up for here, and I found some of the coverage of new technologies to be superficial or poorly presented.

Moreover, the presentation of the material is simply bad. The book is poorly edited, with grammatical errors throughout the text and fairly unclear writing. Worse, the diagramming style is extremely inconsistant. Throughout much of the book, the diagrams used appear to simply be typeset ASCII pictures!

There are also points in the book where it appears that dated, inappropriate text from the first book was literally pasted into the second book. For instance, at one point the author asserts that "not many companies are making money off of Internet routing devices" (paraphrase), and "a company called cisco" (which he continues to lowercase) is a vendor of the most popular routers. Since he laters makes mention of Ipsilon, I'm guessing he hasn't just been asleep as Internet routing companies rampaged across the NASDAQ.

Huitema is at his best when giving his opinions about aspects of Internet technologies. His recommendations are usually spot-on, and the historical background he provides about protocol development rivals the similar, excellent content in Perlman's _Interconnections_.

However, with _Interconnections 2_ on the shelves, I can't see a good reason to shell out ... for this book. Huitema covers some technologies that Perlman doesn't, but Perlman covers essential technologies (such as switching and multicast forwarding) far better than _Routing on the Internet_.

There is a general rule of 80/20. It means 80% of networking books cover 20% of the available networking technologies because they are most common. The average book about internet routing includes 10% of RIP and IGRP, 25% of OSPF, 20% of EIGRP, 20% of BGP and just few words about multicasting, IPv6, resourse reservation, Internet architecture, mobile hosts etc. Another common feature of such books that they give you static shot of current state.

Usually it's more then enough for day to day operations and many people are completely satisfied. But some people want to learn a bit about other 20% and see piture in motion. This book is exactly for them. Probably it doesn't help you much in Cisco router configuration, but you can learn internet history and future from the routing point of view. You can learn a way how routing protocols are developing, what are the current problems and what to expect in a recent future.

This book was included in the CCIE library set and many people were really disappointed because it isn't focused on Cisco routing and switching. In opposite, the most part of this book covers everything that is usually not included in Cisco books. From CCIE or Cisco prospective this book is not really interesting, but it has another goal.

A few more words about this book. It was written by French guy, and he is not Cisco employee. His style is completly different from e.g. Cisco press books'. Cisco wants to show you how well and smoothly it has solved problems, and this book wants to show you what are the problems and drawbacks of current solutions. Cisco gives you answers and this book sometimes just states questions without answers. It's more academic review then manual. Keep it in mind if you are going to buy it.

The final words. Sometimes the language is dull and too dry but if you want to know current state of the internet evolution this book gives you information which is hard to find in any other single book. This book is very good but it's goal is different. It's like the most part of passengers have questions about tickets and they ask ticket agency. But some of them might want to learn more about airplane itself. They can find very good book about airplanes. It's also interesting book but it's definitly different and optional reading for the traveler. The same about this one. It's optional and not the highest priority book but it really gives you a lot of new information about internet routing.

My manager instructed me to learn about BGP. We're talking total novice here. First I tried looking in some CISCO books but they were highly specific towards CISCO products, and that wasn't what I was looking for. Besides, we weren't using CISCO. What I needed to see was the big picture.

This book gives the big picture. Quite honestly I wish there were more books like it.

One reviewer mentioned that the book was rather dry and that he'd "rather read the RFC's". Personally, I find the RFCs much more difficult reading, because they assume prior knowledge.

This book won't give you recipies on how to configure a certain product. Products come and go, new technologies arrive. What this book does give you is a balanced view of the many protocols out there and how they work. It will be on my shelf at work for quite some time to come, while the CISCO books grow old and stale.

Without bogging down in vendor specifics, this book gives you a clear vision of routing protocols and when to use each. The book was easy to follow and give enough packet detail, it could be used to debug routing problems.

Highly authoritative book on IP and routing protocols. Lots of sophisticated analysis and perspective on how routing works and why. The best networking book I've read. I refer to it frequently for its sections on OSPF and BGP.

This is a good book, but, there is nothing in it that warranted
a second edition. Certain areas, such as multicast and
multi-protocol BGP are due for a complete re-write, but
that is barely reflected in the book. In short, the new edition
is good-- if you need it, buy it. But, if you already have
the first edition, don't bother, or you will be disappointed.

I read this book in preperation for the Cisco CCIE cources and found that I was well prepared. This concise text offers a complete description of every major routing protocol in use today. If you manage, troubleshoot or design networks... You Need This Book!

This is a very good encyclopedic book about routing, written by a writer who shows his talents and knowledge.

It gives a very thorough cover of routing at the level of a good study book, which is lacking from the popular TCP/IP books.

This book was written some years ago, and it's age shows, e.g. in it's cover of BGP4 and IPv6.

I recommend this book wholeheartly, with the warning that people who need to actually work with specific routing protocol(s) nowadays should buy a current book.

I have had this book for a number of years and just got around to reading it. It's a good read as long as you know why you are buying it. Huitema's book is more of an academic book, he gives a very good history of why protocols where developed in the way they were and obviously knows his subject extremely well. It is not for someone who is new to Routing and wants to learn the protocols, as he assumes a certain level of knowledge. He reminds me of my professor at college, if you went into knowing nothing you would just come out confused. For someone at the CCNA/CCNP level wanting practical advice with a Cisco slant, without having to read the Cisco course books (which really only teach you how to pass the exam) I would recommend James Macfarlane's book over this. For someone who is a competent Network Engineer wanting to learn why routing protocols behave the way they do, I would recommend this book.

My manager instructed me to learn about BGP. We're talking total novice here. First I tried looking in some CISCO books but they were highly specific towards CISCO products, and that wasn't what I was looking for. Besides, we weren't using CISCO. What I needed to see was the big picture.

This book gives the big picture. Quite honestly I wish there were more books like it.

One reviewer mentioned that the book was rather dry and that he'd "rather read the RFC's". Personally, I find the RFCs much more difficult reading, because they assume prior knowledge.

This book won't give you recipies on how to configure a certain product. Products come and go, new technologies arrive. What this book does give you is a balanced view of the many protocols out there and how they work. It will be on my shelf at work for quite some time to come, while the CISCO books grow old and stale.