Data Communications Books

This book outlines a proposal to integrate artificial intelligence and wireless technology into the World Wide Web in order to make it more powerful and more tuned to the real needs of the user. It is an interesting proposal, but omits discussion of some important issues. The book is targeted to an audience of developers, engineers, researchers, and IT managers who need to understand how to deliver, via wireless technology, intelligent processes and services.

Chapter 1 is an overview of the five areas that the authors feel are needed to form the Intelligent Wireless Web. All of these are viable and desired from a technical standpoint. However, from a human factors standpoint, one of them is somewhat troubling, namely the need for having voice activation for the user interface. This could be extremely annoying if one is working in the now popular cubicle environments, due to the noise level generated from user's speech. Privacy issues could arise too, since voice patterns are easily recorded. Making the transition from dumb/static Web applications to intelligent/dynamic ones is sorely needed, but voice activation/recognition should be the problem of those who are working in other areas of machine intelligence, such as robotics. Of course, if work environments evolve into more private scenarios, the author's proposals for voice activation could become viable.

Chapters 2 and 8 concern speech recognition. I did not read these chapters so their review will be omitted.

In chapter 3, the authors discuss how wireless technology could be integrated into peronal area networks (WPANs). The authors here exhibit a keen awareness both of the technology and the human factors involved in creating what they call a "Personal Space". Home automation will be slow-going perhaps at first, due to legacy systems now in place, but it is highly desirable from the standpoint of energy conservation and home security. To prevent government and other forms of malicious intrusion, wireless security will have to be top priority before the Intelligent Wireless Web is implemented.

Chapter 4 is an overview of the basics behind both wired and wireless networks, with the goal of merging them effectively. The authors are clearly advocating the use of LMDS for high-speed wireless access. However, they do not discuss any performance studies to give more weight to their arguments for LMDS. "Project Oxygen" is discussed as an approach to accomodate mobile and stationary devices, and for moving away from TCP as a congestion manager, but the discussion is too brief to be helpful.

In chapter 5, the authors discuss the status of mobile wireless, IP version 6, and Mobile IP. The authors are a little more quantitative in this chapter, mentioning for example the inability of TDMA to deal with bursty data flows, but no details are given. A fairly detailed overview of "third-generation" mobile wireless technologies is given however. Performance issues are not discussed though, and it would have been interesting if the authors would have included a discussion of MANET.

Chapter 6 is a general overview of artificial intelligence and how it might be applied to Web protocols. As in all discussions on AI, controversies and disagreements will arise in the mind of the reader, but the authors are fair in representing the main ideas, considering the relatively short length of the chapter. The discussion on distributed AI is the most relevant for the book.

In chapter 7 the authors continue the discussion on AI with the goal of seeing to what extent it can be incorporated into the Web. I was glad to see a discussion of the Cyc application in this chapter, even though it was very short. From the author's standpoint the Web currently does not really express intelligence, since it does not adapt, a necessary requirement for learning. A "learning algorithm" is defined as a process that extracts data from a database to serve as its input, and then performs a set of operations on the input, giving finally an output that represents learning. The authors feel that the Semantic Web holds much promise for building an intelligent Web, and outline several tools, such as XML and RDF, that assist in the construction of the Semantic Web. Particularly interesting is the discussion of the need for self-organization in order for the Web to be considered intelligent. The property of self-organization will also be the most problematic to implement, due to the extreme distrust that some now feel against software that has not been validated by a human. This is especially the case for those having to deal with medical records and information on human health.

So why even attempt to build the Intelligent Wireless Web? The authors attempt to answer this question in Chapter 9. They conclude, based on Moore's law, that wireless chip technology will allow cellular carriers to build networks for less than $100 per customer. They never however answer how much intelligent applications over the wireless Web will improve productivity. This can be accomplished to a large degree with simulation and mathematical modeling, but the authors do not do so.

Chapter 10 is an overview of the actual progress in developing the Intelligent Wireless Web. The challenges are considerable, not only from a technical standpoint in the creation of intelligent applications, but also because of legacy issues. The authors are aware of this and give a network schematic outlining an integrated wired/wireless network. Their concept of an Intelligent Wireless Web is a good one, but their justification for it, especially for the use of speech recognition, is somewhat weak. They need to perform a lot more modeling studies to see just how these smart applications are going to behave on the Web.

I can only second what others have said. This is a great book to give you a big picture of the wireless landscape and offers some good insights into possible futures. If there's an acronym related to wireless that you didn't know rest assured you'll find it here...

This very well organized overview of information on current and future wireless communication should be must reading for anyone involved with data transmission and storage technology. It provides a particularly fascinating glimpse of what may lie in store for the future.

A highly inspirational "GESTALT" view of the mobile internet of the future, a MUST READ for anyone in the 3G Wireless business

This new book provides an excellent description of current developments in implementing intelligent applications for mobile, wireless systems. More importantly, it suggests a broad and comprehensive vision of the future development of the internet. The organization and style of the book facilitate understanding of an otherwise complex set of topics. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in fully understanding the future trends in information technology.

I never imagined you could write this much useful information about such a subject, the fact that you could and also make it readable was great!

if you are a network SME you need to buy and read!

If you want to pass the TCP/IP exam to get your MCSE, just study this book and you'll be fine. Written very well, I'm very impressed.

Before you read this book, I think you must have fundamental knowledge on TCP/IP, since this book does not provide basic information on TCP/IP in-depth. However, it still does a good job for helping you prepare the exam. It is a complete book, that contains many materials, enough illustration, fast track etc. But the part of the fast track(summary of the whole book) is not so good, the content is too superficial and also the review questions are too easy that not match to the live exam.

This is definitely a good study guide for the Microsoft implementation of TCP/IP. Don't accept it as a definitive reference on TCP/IP in general.

There are a lot of TCP/IP books out there, but this is one of the most thorough and well written MCSE books I've read. (I've read a lot!). It takes you from TCP/IP fundamentals on up. STRONG NT Server knowledge a definate pre-requisite for this book. Will make a great administration reference after the test!

I read this book expecting to gain an understanding of MPLS in the context of hoping to be able to understand the relevant RFCs pertaining to IP routing. In general, given certain weaknesses, the book succeeds.

The book is split into eight chapters as follows: 1. Introduction 2. Fundamental Concepts 3. IP Switching 4. Tag Switching 5. MPLS Core Protocols 6. Quality of Service 7. Constraint-based Routeing 8. Virtual Private Networks

On the positive side, the limitations of IP-based routing are well explained. The core protocols, namely MPLS itself and the extensions to RSVP are well explained, and the two chapters dealing with QoS and Constraint-based routing are also well explained, and the section explaining Traffic Engineering is excellent. The book was also a great introduction to the various MPLS, RSVP and TE RFCs.

On the negative side, I felt that chapters 3 and 4 dealing with historical antecedants to MPLS were "filler" chapters better located in an appendix. The book has the feel of being rushed out to meet a deadline. The editing is poor, and there is sometimes poor coordination between text and diagrams: in several places in the book a section contains several pages of dense text explaining a technical detail, and then introduces a diagram supporting the concepts just introduced. In other cases, no diagram at all is used to support the concepts, such as the explanation of CSPF in Chapter 7. Some concepts or terms are explained further in the book after they are first introduced, such as the icons used to represent ATM switches and IP routers, also in Chapter 7. There is no tutorial to introduce some networking concepts. It is not reasonable IMO to expect readers to have a basic understanding of ATM and RSVP, and some networking acronyms are not explained in the glossary. A mixture of British and US spelling is used (for example, signalling and routeing).

In summary. The book is excellent technically, but is denied a perfect 5-star rating by poor editing and structural layout. Perhaps this is because they the authors didn't use a top-notch publisher, or they were rushing to have one of the first MPLS books out on the market. There is no on-line errata listing.

An excellent intro to MPLS. It covers in the first four chapters the technical reasons to develop such a technology, data (Ipsilon)and control (Cisco Tag Switching) driven IP switching technologies.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 present MPLS standard protocols, QoS under MPLS and Constraint Based Routing for traffic engineering and other applications.

Finally, Chapter 8 covers VPN as a main application of MPLS.

It might be a little outdated now with more MPLS standards and applications has been developed that are not discussed/detailed in the book (such as Multicast support, IP-VPN, VPLS, etc).

Sherif

The book "MPLS: Technology and Applications" describes the MPLS protocol, some related around it as well as the history of IP/tag switching. It is very obvious that the book is written by two experts that were very much involved in the evolution of IP/tag switching.

Almost everything you need to know about MPLS is covered in this book. The book is clearly structured and well organized and kept quite compact. The problems that led to the development of MPLS are very well explained, the introduction and chapter 2, the fundamental concepts, are clear and to the point. The following chapters, describing the two most important proprietary predecessors of MPLS are quite valuable for understanding some of the decisions that led to the definition of MPLS.

Unfortunately, the book is too theoretical and only gives an overview of the MPLS technology. Although the text is written quite well, more and better illustrations and diagrams and most of all some examples would help to understand the presented concepts much better. I admire every author that manages to write a book with 200-400 pages, but in this case I wish they would have covered some of the technical aspects, especially in the chapters about the MPLS core protocols and the QoS, in more detail.

Overall this is a good book that covers all of the important aspects of MPLS but some of the chapters are too theoretical and hard to understand without any illustrations and examples.

With ever increasing demand for performance, scalability and efficiency, new technologies/protocols are born with ever increasing complexity creating a fertile ground for authors/publishers to write cut and paste books. Most of these authors do not have a sound and broad enough background to describe the subject matter well. Bruce Davie and Yakov Rekther are rare exceptions. Their deep knowledge shines through the pages. It may not be the most detailed book on the market about the subject. But who can complain, when you can learn 80 percent of the technology for 20 percent of the time invested. If you want to learn about routing in general and MPLS in particular, please buy this book. I have shelf full of books buy the other authors gathering dust.

This is the best book yet on the Complex MPLS technology. Anyone who is interested in increasing his knowledge of MPLS technology MUST read this book.

Barnum would have loved this book as he relished the idea that a sucker is born every minute. I wasted both time and money on this book. If you want a far more credible model of management, get the book Beyond the Hype. For serious stories of leadership read and learn from The Working Leader. For serious exposition of complexity theory and business, buy Ralph Stacey's books.

"The old common sense was about dealing with the discrete elements of a 'complicated' world. The next common sense is about mastering the 'complex' swirl of events and situations around us through coherence. The old world was a complicated agglomeration of many discrete items. The new world is a complex one of interdependencies and interrelationships...Our purpose in writing this book is to help you to be like Alexander the Great. When confronted with the legendary knot of tangle rope tied by King Gordius, Alexander knew what to do. Faced with the traditional challenge, he accepted without hesitation: the complexity of the knot did not phase him. He drew his sword and cut the Gordian knot with a single, dramatic stroke, thereby ensuring that he would rule all of Asia. Many before Alexander had tried and failed, thinking that the knot was complicated and needed to be untied. Only Alexander saw that a simple action would move through the complexity to a higher plane. Untying your own Gordian knots requires nothing more than common sense - the next common sense...In this book we present 10 scenic vistas on the corporate landscape. All have elements that derive from complexity science but, more importantly, all relate to management. From each vista, you the reader are encouraged to extract simple guiding principles that make sense to you. Creating your own coherent point of view will be the takeaway from reading this book. We hope you enjoy the view!" (pp.1-16).

In this context, throuhout the book Michael Lissack and Johan Roos discuss these 10 scenic vistas as follows:

1- Use simple guiding principles. They write, "where the old common sense was about dealing with local situations and trying to 'sort things out,' the next common sense is about adopting a global viewpoint, allowing interactions to happen, which in turn will drive coherent actions", and list traditional six bad rules that lead to failure:

(1). Treat business as if it were a war fought on a battlefield.

(2). View the corporation as a machine.

(3). Practice management as control.

(4). Treat your employee as children.

(5). To motivate, use fear.

(6). Remember, change is nothing but pain.(more detailed discussion see Chapter 2).

2- Respect mental models, yours and others'. They write, "the next common sense is about creating an organizational context for coherent actions. To create such a context yuo must help the necessary others, i.e. everyone you interact with, in the process of finding meaning and of creating a coherent point of view. Another label for this process is making sense" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 3).

3- Use landscape metaphors to describe both the environment and processes taking place within it. They write, "landscape images align with today's world - just look at the ascendancy of the landscape motif in numerous book titles, articles, conferences, and media events. Landscapes are part of the next common sense because they provide context we all can relate to. They work much more easily than jargon, and are better descriptors than the game and race metaphors of the old common sense" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 4).

4- Combine and recombine and avoid trying to impress yourself or others with holism. They write, "the beauty of pieces, of building blocks, is that they can be combined and recombined to create new things, new ideas, and new ways of relating and interacting. In a world where wholes are not simply the sum of their parts, it is critical to train ourselves to think about deconstructing and recombining. The philosophers may call this postmodernism-we call it the next common sense" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 5).

5- Recognize your multiple roles, don't hide from them. They write, "we question whether it was ever common sense to insist that the company always comes first, but clearly that has been a norm in big corporations for years. In the next common sense it is critical to allow people to be themselves. Only by acknowledging the many sides of each person can a company hope to obtain maximum benefits from that person over the long run. Most firms recognize this for their CEO - it is time they reconized it for the troops in the trenches" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 6).

6- Create canyons, not canals. They write, "canyons are not about the command-and-control culture of the old common sense - they are about the guiding values of the next common sense. Canyons are an analogy for the guiding viewpoints that managers of interactions need to be effective. Canals are the comparable analogy for the manager of entities who issued commands in an effort to manage outcomes" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 7).

7- Tell stories to allow others the benefit of shared experiences. They write, "stories are about context. The old common sense may have encouraged the use of bullets as a means of avoiding context. The next common sense is about telling stories that are open enough to allow listeners to draw relevant conclusions and authentic enough to convey their context in metaphors" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 8).

8- Send out scouting parties to probe the environment. They write, "the old common sense, which may have justified a closed mind, not-invented-here syndrome, just just does not work in a world of interactions. The next common sense asks what we can learn from the environment. Preparation is the key to attaining advantage" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 9).

9- Post and attend to road signs. They write, "using the next common sense is a matter of recognizing individual contributions and allowing others to leverage them, while combating the tendency of individuals to stake out territory and post 'no trespassing' signs. In a world of interactions, knowledge of opportunities is key to realizing them, and awareness of fences is an awareness of opportunities missed" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 10).

10- Fuel coherence with aligned words. They write, "it was never true that words had only one meaning, but many managers operating from the old common sense sure acted as if they did - the boss's meaning. Reflection on the next common sense reveals an essential truth: the words we use can help to enact the context for our actions. Words that are aligned with values and purpose can assist intended acts; words that are not aligned can act instead to obstruct. Word choice matters" (more detailed discussion see Chapter 11).

On the other hand, Chapter 12 is about creating coherence.As they write, "Chapters 2-11 have given you building blocks for both making sense of things and developing a coherent point of view. Now these building blocks need to be used to construct an action plan. This chapter is about using what you have learned. Five steps are key to realizing the next common sense in any organization".And they describe these steps as follows:

(1). Identify yourself and your goals.

(2). Use the right language.

(3). Create the right context.

(4). Turn people loose and then get out of the way.

(5). Use communication that works.

As argued by them, these five steps are not guarantee of success, but a tool for attaining the skill of a master.

Strongly recommended.

Because of my deep personal interest in using visual thinking tools for opportunity discovery and strategic exploration, I find this book very useful and practical. I particularly like the authors' use of powerful visual metaphors to understand & to master the complexity all around us, and to chart out new strategic directions, whether in business or in life. If you are planning what you want to do with the rest of your life in our constantly changing & uncertain world - or planning the next strategic moves for your company- read this book and use the ideas. The authors' website is also worth exploring.

Anything written by either of the two authors must be taken very seriously, and this book does not disappoint. Johan Roos is an impressive speaker and author and Mike Lissack is that rarity, a genuinely original thinker. This book is a quiet and thoughtful guide to new ideas, or "The Next Common Sense". It could also have been called the Tao of Complexity.

Whilst the book is informed by ideas associated with "complexity", the authors never fall into jargon, and the reader is introduced to a number of concepts without having the underlying theory or origin of the ideas actually forced on them. It would appear that the purpose of the book is to bring a new set of concepts more fully into the public domain and in this they succeed.

I would also like to read another book, which I hope they write, which explores the environment into which our society is now traveling, a world in which we feel like Alice in Wonderland, and for which we need the best guidebooks available.

This book reveals how to make sense of today's economic environment and organization, providing a set of ten principles or perspectives for understanding and leading organization. These principles reflect a new way of thinking and acting-a new common sense-in contrast to the old. For instance, leading entities (old) vs. guiding interactions; using mechanistic metaphors (old) vs. thinking about ecosystems; and insisting the company come first (old) vs. allowing people to be themselves. A chapter is devoted to discussing each principle. An interesting exploration into ways of thinking and dealing effectively with organizational and leadership issues. It makes for some clarity in today's fast and furiously foward rushing reality. Recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern and Yvette Borcia, founders, Stern & Associates and HR Knowledge Network, authors of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits.

I had a very limited amount of knowledge on SNMP but this book took me from 0 knowledge to the point where I use this as a reference on the job. I'm a network engineer that is in charge of managing our LAN/WAN sites across the US using SNMP based management and I find this book to be indispensible.

Very useful book for learning and understanding the issues of SNMPv3. Lots of examples and pseudo-code for in-depth understanding. Takes less time to read than all the RFC's ;-).

The one star rating I gave this book was because I bought this book based on all the people who said this was a great book for beginners to learn SNMP. ABSOLUTELY NOT! If you are a beginner, don't touch this book. Nowhere in the book does it show you how to actually USE SNMP practically. It does throw out some code here and there, but doesn't explain how or why the code works...let alone the most important part...how to implement it. It's just code by itself sitting there. This book may be a good reference for the experienced, but all it is is definitions of the different parts of SNMP. Big waste of time and money for a beginner.

I have been working on SNMP for a while, and have read a lot of SNMP books. This book is definitely the best one and it's written for both beginners and experienced engineers.

This book is the best SNMP book I've seen. It is extremely well organized and easy to read. It allowed me to quickly understand the fundamentals of SNMP v3 and the examples were very helpful in getting my job done. I highly recommend this book.

I was extremely impressed with this book. I have read the Sybex(waste of money) and New Riders(good book) books and found them both to pale in comparison to this cheap, complete, resource. I took both exams and obliterated them. This book is very thorough and graphic in its explanations of the topics. I would recommend this book moreso than any other book I have read on the subject. Even among the 14-Day Sams books, this ranks #1 in my opinion. It is much more informative than the Workstation book and covers the minor details that will be stressed on the tests.

I (hesitantly) bought this book as a last minute review type book. I couldn't believe how many questions on the NT 4.O Server exam this book helped me answer. It was very easy to understand and follow,& without all the unneeded fluff. This book is a must read for at least the Server exam. The cover does say it preps you for the Enterprise exam as well, but its hard to say how well, since I haven't taken that exam yet.

Great Book!! Got everything I needed to pass the Server exam with just 1/2 the pages of all those other prep Books. I hope Sam's continues the trend and produces equally good books for other MS exams.. HIGHLY Recommended!!! P.S The price (which I normally don't worry about)further makes this an outstanding buy.

I purchased this book after reading positive reviews about it. It was one of the most easy, down to the point books I've ever read. This book, along with Exam Cram got me through the Server exam with a breeze...

This is a decent introduction to TCP/IP networking with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. It covers all the material needed to pass the corresponding MCSE exam.

The quality of the indivual chapter varies greatly, though, which isn't surprising as the book was written by four people.

The information in the book is mostly accurate, and it is clear that the material went through an editing process, but some problems remain. In particular, the use of the "%systemroot%" pointer is clearly wrong, and some of the answers to the exercises in the "Lab" section are inaccurate. Ah--the exercises! This is clearly the weakest part of the book that really needs to be revised. Too bad, especially for an exam preparation book. Language and style is another part that needs improvement.

An excellent reference for TCP/IP is Windows NT TCP/IP Network Administration (C. Hunt; O'Reilly)--not an exam preparation book per se, but it has all the material necessary to pass, and then some. For those of you who actually like reading, the writing style of this book is far superior to the one under review, which makes it a pleasurable experience to read.

Sometimes, as we search for books and reference materials, certain "gurus" will save the best knowledge for themselves. Well, this books covers and explains all that is to know concerning mobile internet technologies and applications.

Product Managers, Internet and Telecommunication Consultants, Business Managers must read this book if they want to understand the imminent explosion of mobile services. Chetan Sharma, the author covers important topics like market drivers, wireless applications and services landscape, technology landscape, industry players and wireless strategies.

Most importantly, I found that this is the most thorough book on mobile applications published. Thumbs up from me.

This book is gem of a resource. By using figures and tables throughout the book, author has made the reading and understanding of concepts easy and fun. It's rare to find a book which is good in depth and yet, is readable. The Chapter on technology is by far the best. I am having all my sales staff read this to get a good understanding of the solutions available in the market and the market itself. Enjoy.

Waste of time and money. All the information in this book is a result of one week browsing the web. Author lacks any logical categorization, jumps from topic to topic. Most of the book has absolutely nothing in common with the subject.

In his very first book, Sharma has exhibited great command on the material and his presentation is extremely lucid. In packing the book with practical information about the industry and nearly 150 illustrations to clearly articulate the material, the author reviews the wireless internet marketplace, in a very reader-friendly fashion. If you are new to wireless, this is a good book to get your feet wet. If you are not new to the field, it is a great book to get up to speed with the state-of-the-art. This book contains a good overview of the wide spectrum of wireless technologies.

The following are the highlights of the book: overview of the wireless internet realm, overview of competing technologies, references to the key players in the relevant industry segments, extremely informative graphics and diagrams, and the great set of references (URLs and books) at the very end. The author's ability to weave seamlessly in to the middle of the book, several great articles by industry experts speaks volumes to his writing ability and flexibility.

The chapters on market drivers and evaluation of competing technologies are very well written. The book (Chapters 3 and 7 in particular) can effectively bring a corporate decision-maker up to speed with the state-of-the-art and help her/him make better-informed decisions by separating the chaff from the real stuff.

The book contains a concise history (a bit too concise, though) of the development of the wireless world. A little bit more detail to the evolution of the wireless internet would have been more helpful. Similarly, the section on Wireless Internet tomorrow seemed to lack punch. However, (in cutting the author some slack), that is more due to the nature of the industry than anything else. On the whole, I have never seen a book without any shortcomings; however, I must say, this book is the best overview of wireless enterprise applications that I have seen to date. Once I picked it up, I could not put it down easily. I look forward to Sharma's next book.

'Wireless Internet Enterprise Applications' authored by Chetan Sharma provides an overview of the latest industry trends driving the proliferation of 'm-Commerce'. The book discusses wireless Internet applications and services using several examples that touch our daily life. The technology that brings these applications to life is dealt with in a simple, brief and effective way. This section of the book is its backbone and is an eye-opener. The book also provides you with a rough sketch on how to plan an effective strategy for transformation of existing web-centric applications to Internet services over wireless medium to any personal device. The book serves a dual purpose - to educate the reader about wireless applications, and increase ones' awareness of existing wireless services being offered. The author has peppered the book with several web-site URLs that serve as examples as well as useful resources. To the potential user, this is a sea of information to check out, and to the entrepreneur or a business manager; it provides a seed for business ideas.

The book presents the reader with a wireless primer outlining a wireless network and its component. The brief discussion of time-lines associated with adoption of wireless technologies adopted in Europe, Japan and America sets the scene for future trends. The issues that are driving the developments of Internet applications into the wireless world are discussed concisely. Widespread adoption of standard protocols such as WAP, Bluetooth and XML, improved accuracy in position location and convergence of communications and computing will facilitate the adaptation of the Web-centric Internet model to the wireless world. While making the case for wireless Internet enterprise applications the author maintains a balanced view. The author cites the example of iMode to illustrate that there is a demand and awareness amongst consumers for wireless applications. However, he correctly points out that, all of that can go waste if there is a dearth of useful and exciting information to the user or oddly enough even if there is an deluge of information on the screen.

The chapter titled Technology Landscape is the strength of the book. It reviews in further detail the computing technologies such as transcoding and markup, web clipping, Jini, IP based technologies, compression and encryption, Smart Cards, Smart materials, and wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, HomeRF, Position Location Technologies, GPS and Smart Antennas. By the end of the chapter, you cover a lot of ground on a variety of technology options. It is brief and relevant. It was felt that sections on the popular WAP could have been more detailed while sparing those like Biometrics for authentication. Nevertheless, it provides the background for a discussion on the players of the value chain and how the content filters through to the consumers. The author outlines three approaches to wireless Internet solutions - accessing desktop email/ calendar applications, modifying existing Web-based applications to wireless devices and building fresh e-business solutions. The discussion of the third approach makes a useful reading because it provides a quick checklist for defining and implementing a wireless e-business application. Among the critical success factors, the author suggests that simplicity of end user experience, presentation of a subset of user web-site content and device-independent rendering of underlying services and data on disparate devices will be the decisive factors in early adoption of this exciting technology.

In summary, the book meets its objective in providing a good macroscopic view of wireless Internet applications. The examples, illustrations, charts and the web-site resources complement the text in making it a "un-put-down-able" book. It is what it is - an excellent "tech brief". A web-site with a list of all the URLs mentioned in the book would have been a great plus.

K. Rajesh Jagannath, Member, IEEE.

This book gave a solid grounding in what is available and a broad idea of how to use each of the options, such as IPSec with Openswan; PPTP with PopTop, using SSH+PPP, and other more proprietary VPN methods.

Some of the info is a bit dated; For example, many Linux kernels these days come standard with support for IPSec and PPTP as modules. I definitely recommend after reading this book and deciding on a VPN strategy, that you find quality web sites with more up-to-date information about how to configure your selected VPN technology on your selected Linux distribution. I chose Debian/GNU Linux myself. With this book and some updated information added to that foundation, I feel like I have a good start.

I don't know what is hapening with this people...
I buy this book based in that reviews (all 5 stars) and when I open the book I am totaly disapointed. About the book: The examples is not complete and the text is confused. I do not recomend.

Building Linux VPNs is the first book I've bought in the last three years that has the right balance between theory and practice. The first two chapters let you know everything you need to know about VPNs and network topologies and 'gotcha's (where should the DNS server go? How should I route?)

They get all this out of the way quickly. Many books that are dedicated to VPNs only talk about this part of the equation, and do so for hundreds of pages. Oleg and Brian get it all down so you can digest it in a sitting and have everything you need to know.

The remaining chapters cover specific VPN protocols. I needed to support PPTP for the majority of my windows clients, and IPSec for my remote offices and more recent laptops that suppported it. I literally built these VPNs by reading and copying in text (yes, I could have got the code off the web page, but nothing is better than doing it yourself) as I went along. Not a single problem, it was smoother than smooth.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you want a VPN on Linux (or other Unix for that matter) then this is the book for you.

I've been struggling with PPTP and FreeS/WAN for years now and the hardest task I now have to deal with is teaching others the intricate nature of VPN's, tunneling, masq'ing connections and linking private LANs together. This book has been an excellent resource to intruct others on how to administer our tangle of connections and taught me a few nifty tricks in the process.

If you need to know, really need to know VPN internals and how to make them work, Oleg Kolesnikov has written a masterpiece.

Dear all,
I am totally satisfied with the contents of the book.Needless to say that fulfilled my expectations for an in-depth analysis of the security aspects on Cisco ASA Systems.

Thodoris,
Athens, Hellas

Excellent reference book. I wouldn't want to curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and read it from beginning to end, but it was an essential tool in a recent firewall migration at my workplace. It also seems to be just about the only book about the relatively new asa platform.

This book has been very helpful for me. The only issue that I ran into was that the VPN section was a little outdated.

This manual was excellent! Definitely something to keep at your desk as a reference.

This book helped me a lot. I recently deployed over 250 ASAs and was running into a lot of problems with the IPS SSM and VPN features. I got most of my answers from this book.

This is a great book for the new Cisco Phone administrator, but please realize that although it is in its 7th printing, it has not been updated. I ordered this book and found that most of the information I was looking for was on items added after CCM 3.1 (which is the version that is covered in this book).

I studied this book for my CIPT exam. Even though this book itself does not suffice to pass the exam, I could not have done without it either. It provides a clear understanding of CallManager and other CIPT components. All the pictures and graphics are well designed. If I have to criticise a couple points, I would say there are a few organization flaws. Titles could have been organized more effectively. Another improvement could be deviding Route Plan chapter. This chapter is very long compare to others.
Overall, I strongly recommend this book for those who want to understand "Fundamentals of CallManager." Also, if you are studying for CIPT, you should consider "Cisco IP Telephony" book along with this.
As far as practice tests concerns, neither books have enough questions for practice. I had to find a third party question bank to study and it helped a lot. "Cisco IP Telephony" book has some practice questions at the end of each chapter, but I can almost gurantee you that they don't help on the actual test.
Good luck to everyone...

Thankfully, a new edition. This is hands down the best book available on using the Cisco CallManager system. Unfortunately the first edition came out in 2001, since then the software has gone through at least five revision levels. This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1.

The biggest point about this book is that it covers the inner workings, the architecture of the system. This is often helpful in understanding just what it is that you're doing. Of course it also covers all of the standard user interface tools like management, monitoring, reports and everything else.

This is hands down the best book on the CallManager, if you have to manage one of these beasts you have a much harder job on your hands if you don't have this book. My only real negative, please guys, don't wait for six software releases to go by before you do a third edition.

One of the other customer reviews for this book (which may have been removed by now because I have complained about it) says: "This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1."

But clearly, that customer was referring to the 2nd Edition of the book - this book that you are looking at is the First Edition; in other words, it IS the old book which only covers version 3.1. I know, because I just bought it for $20 and now I will throw it away and buy the 2nd Edition.

I did the CIPT training course hoping that it would be enough to pass the exam. Although the instructor was excellent, the documentation was not. It did not couther certain topics in detail, and was hard to follow. As I had to pass the exam for myself and so that the company kept its Cisco Partner Status I had to get some good documentation.

Although I am only half was through this book I am finding it excellent. It goes into good detail on the information, which you have to know, whilst not sending you to sleep on information, which is not relevant to call manager, networking, or telephony. I am confident that once I have read the book a few times I should be able to pass the exam without too much trouble. Cannot say this about the Cisco training documentation.