The All-New Switch Book: The Complete Guide to LAN Switching Technology (Hardcover)

~ Rich Seifert (Author), James Edwards (Author)
Key Phrases: source address, route discovery, link aggregation, Token Ring, Data Link, Switch Concepts (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This much-needed update to the bestselling guide on the extensive changes to the local area networks (LAN) switching technologies explains why LAN switching technologies are critical to network design. This in-depth guide covers the capabilities, application, and design of LAN switches and switched internetworks and examines the significant changes that have taken place since the publication of the first edition seven years ago. You’re sure to appreciate the witty writing style and easy-to-follow format on such an often-complicated subject matter.

From the Back Cover

The much-anticipated update to the bestselling book on LAN switching

Since the publication of the first edition of The Switch Book seven years ago, LAN switching has witnessed significant changes, particularly in the areas of network layers, Ethernet, fast Ethernet, segmenting LANs, layer 3 switching, layer 4 switching, and multi-layer switching, to name just a few. With this updated guide, you'll discover the latest capabilities of LAN switches and get in-depth coverage of the abstract engineering principles behind switch operations in addition to the practical application of those principles in commercial products.

Coauthored by an innovator who has been at the forefront of networking technology for more than two decades, this unique resource begins by laying the foundation of the core technologies underlying LAN switch design, including network architecture, addressing, LAN technology, and LAN standards. Building on those fundamentals, the book goes on to investigate the many advanced features, as well as the possibilities, that exist in modern switches. From there, you'll dive into the technical details of transparent bridges as they are used between similar and dissimilar technologies. You'll learn that, along with the performance advantages that are offered by switches, comes an increase in features, options, and complexity.

With more than forty percent new and updated material, this second edition of The All-New Switch Book explains:

• The problems of link congestion that arise from the deployment of LAN switches

• How switches and end stations can use a group of independent LAN segments as if they were a single link

• Security concerns that environments need to be aware of, and how to prevent attacks

• The concepts and operation of source routing in both end stations and bridges

• The various uses for Virtual LANs (VLANs) as well as the key concepts employed by devices that implement VLAN capability

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (August 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470287152
• ISBN-13: 978-0470287156
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,897 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Everything but too thourough for some, January 11, 2009

By	L. Bratthall "IT Professional" (Norway) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased the book in order to select a single, but higly capable switch. Did I get to know everything I needed in order to do the purchase? Definitely. Do you need about 800 pages to do this? Not really, if you have studied communication systems at university level.

The book is well written, no doubt. The author understands what is difficult in making a high performance switch, and how different features interact. Furthermore, the book deals with a multitude of standard, technologies, so that the the manager of a larger net better can understand, troubleshoot and plan his network.

This book is definitely too much for the person wanting to know what a switch is. That is not the audience. I can recommend the book for the network professional, especially for those who start as practitioners, and need a better theoretical underpinning. I do not meen 'formal language' theoretical, but who wants to understand the 'why is it like this' in switching technology.

The only reason I do not give it 5 stars, is that the book covers more than many users ever will need. The authors do explain challenging concepts in a good way, so if you like me really want to get it - get this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, November 28, 2008

By	meowfast "anonymous" (USA) - See all my reviews

This is a very good book about how switches work. It discusses, architecture, management, VLANs, spanning tree. Starts out basic and builds up on concepts explained in previous sections. It is very well written, easy to understand, nicely explained with good figures. I wish other authors would learn to write like Rich Seifert. Mostly geared towards how Ethernet switches work. Describes differences between bridges, switches and routers. I recommend you buy this book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but needs some editing, December 17, 2008

By	W. Parrish "bparrish8" (near Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all, I love this book. It's well organized, an entertaining treatment of complex concepts, and a great way to get up to speed on how switches work within the context of recent history and the various standards.

But I've found what seems to me like an excessive number of typos in this new book. Mine is labeled as a Second Edition on the copyright page, but the little countdown numbers (which I think show the printing) go all the way from 10 down to 1 (so maybe it's a first printing).

They give an email to send errata to (and I've sent several - a quick check on outlook shows 7) and nobody has ever responded, so I'm not sure if they are really interested in fixing the problems or not.

In some cases, there were diagrams that were correct in the original book (at least the "books 24/7" version we have available online here), but are incorrect in the new book. (For example fig 9-8 on p. 376 has the Aggregator recieve queue (on the right) labeled as an Aggregator Transmit queue. Similar errors on page 372 and 373 in the Link Aggregation stuff. It looks like when they went to update to the new book, they failed to get the latest graphics files from the old book. There are also several internal references that don't match.

There are also section number references that are wrong (Page 36 has a reference to section 1.1.7.3 that should be 1.1.9.3, for example)

As far as I can tell, none of the typos are *real* serious, but I found the diagram errors (which went wrong from the original book) particularly troubling, as well as the lack of response from their email support address.

Apparently this review triggered a sideband contact to the author, who emailed me about the errors. Email was apparently piled up on the errata email address. They are working to make the corrections.