Internet Books

That's just yet another great title from Cisco Press! There are just too many books available on MPLS both as a technology and service enabler, but it's hard to see a book that focuses on only one aspect of MPLS applications, i.e., MPLS VPN Security. I just love the fact as to how the book is structured to serve both novice and the advanced user to MPLS VPNs and its Security aspects. I like the idea that authors keep both enterprise and SP implementation aspects of MPLS VPN. Information throughout the book is precise, up to date and easy to follow. Book is structured into four Parts;

Part I focuses on MPLS VPNs and network security fundamentals, upon completion of this part you are not only up to speed with the key security concepts for analyzing MPLS network scenarios and where security needs to be implemented (i.e., zones of trust) but also the complete threat model for it which even discusses on securing NOC.

Part II introduces you to advanced concepts of MPLS VPN security, i.e., Inter-AS, Carrier's Carrier (CsC) architectural security. Authors do a good job of keeping in check the security issues which are independent of MPLS and need to be solved separately. They also make it very clear that security is an important network design aspect and how some design decisions can make an entire network insecure. Chapter 5 is mostly a re-hash of basic network security fundamentals in Cisco IOS feature set.

Part III walks you through the practical guidelines of how IPSec complements MPLS and security of Layer 2 VPNs and concludes with how you can effectively operate a secure MPLS VPN core. Authors make it clear that both technologies work together very well, but before considering IPSec into MPLS, one should clearly outline what are the goals (basically when to use PE-to-PE versus CE-to-CE encryption etc.).

In Part IV, the chapter I like most is the "case studies" - it provides use cases, application examples, and best practices guidelines for the key concepts discussed in the whole book.

This book discusses security in the context of MPLS VPNs Security and other related aspects (like Internet access within a VRF, Extranet or common services etc.). Both authors are very well known at IETF and Distinguished engineers at Cisco Systems. Their experience in the areas of network security and attack mitigation shines throughout the book.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book to all network security engineers as MPLS (due to its inherent advantages and applications) is gaining momentum not only in the service provider space but also in the enterprise market segment.

This is one of the few books I've seen that starts off with a discussion of just what is secure. Secure from the casual hacker that might try to get into your network is one thing. If the resources of the NSA are applied to getting by your security it's an entirely different matter.

The second chapter continues this analysis through the design of a threat model. Just what is it that you want protection against?

The chapters that follow go into the design of a secure system, followed by some case studies that are used to illustrate the theoretical discussion points from the previous chapters.

It would be nice if the world out there were a friendlier place, but it isn't. If it's your job to set up a secure system using MPLS, this book will provide the basic background information you need before you start entering parameters into the various security devices.

A very good examination of MPLS security that goes way beyond "its just like Frame Relay". The authors do an extremely deep dive on those aspects of MPLS technology that may effect the security of carriers who run MPLS or enterprises who utilize MPLS services. This is a rare book of interest to both carrier and enterprise network engineers. There is also some excellent coverage of link layer MPLS technologies and their security issues. It should be noted that this is not a primer on MPLS nor is it an MPLS book for security engineers. Instead it is (so far) the best available work on MPLS Security for network engineers who are already familiar with MPLS and WAN technology. Strongly Recommended.

MPLS VPN Security (Paperback)
by Michael H. Behringer, Monique J. Morrow ISBN 1587051834
As Multiprocotol Label Switching (MPLS) is becoming widely deployed for providing virtual private network (VPN) services. Security becomes a major concern for companies planning to migrate from the legacy VPN's to MPLS VPN's. This book provides an indepth look at what are the real security issues that both service providers providing MPLS VPN's and companies utlizing such services face. The authors provide a clear understanding of how the MPLS VPN's work differently from other VPN technologies.
The book is divided into four parts MPLS VPN and Security Fundamentals form Part One. The first part of the book provides an excellent overview on the three basic components of security: the architecture, design and operations and defines the "zones of trust" for an MPLS VPN environment. It provides an excellent Security Reference Model for MPLS VPNs. The various threats to a VPN are broken down into parts for better understanding, like threat, intrusion, Denial of Service against a VPN. Threat against an Extranet site. Threats against the core, and from within a Zone of trust.
Part Two of the book provides an analysis of Advanced MPLS VPN Security Issues like VPN Seperation (Address Space and traffic), Robustness against attacks (where and how), protection against spoofing, Specific Inter-AS considerations and comparisons. And other issues not addressed by the MPLS Architecture. It examines in detail Secure MPLS VPN designs and shows how to design a DOS resistant network and the tradeoffs between DOS resistance and network cost. The security recommendations provide tips on general router security, basic templates and ACL Examples. CE-Specific router security and topology design considerations. LAN Security Issues. CE-PE routing Security Best Practices. IPSec both CE to CE and PE to PE. And a comprehensive checklist for securing Core and Routing.
Part Three provides practical guidelines to MPLS VNP Security and shows how IPSec complements MPLS. It explains the deployment of IPSec on MPLS and use of other encryption techniques. It underlines the importance of security of MPLS Layer 2 VPNs and the various generic Layer 2 security considerations. The section ends with providing a plan for the operation management and maintenance of a MPLS core. It deals with the secure management of CE devices, management of VRF and VRF details.
Part Four provides deployment examples and lessons learned, highlighting theoretical discussion points from the previous chapters. It also provides various scenarios for internet access and points out security considerations for each example.
The coauthor Michael H. Behringer is an active member of the IETF and has published work on MPLS VPN security since 2001.
The coauthor Monique J. Morrow (CCIE # 1711) is active in both IETF and ITU-T SG 13 with a focus on OAM. She is currently engaged in MPLS OAM standards development.
I feel this book would be extremely useful for security and operations staff of enterprises that deploy MPLS or subscribe to a service based on MPLS.
I give this book 5 stars on a scale of 5, 5 being the highest. I strongly recommend this book.
Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP

Multichannel marketing is an excellent resource to learn about how you can combine on and off line marketing integrating it and providing metrics to evaluate campaigns. This is great for seasoned professionals or for those starting out in their career. Highly recommended read to expand your knowledge.

This book is written with excellent real-life examples and specific information. And it's written in a tone that's easy to digest, with a voice that's marketer-to-marketer. It's good to take a step back and understand how online and offline campaigns affect each other, especially if you don't actively do both for your job. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I've already subscribed to Akin's Blog (www.multichannelmetrics.com) and sent the link to my team!

As the online and the offline worlds collide from a marketing perspective, practitioners need to be fully prepared to leverage the wealth of opportunities this creates. The Multichannel Maketing book is targeted to this exact cause.
As an online marketer myself, I found this book extremely engaging and useful as we delve into combining our online and offline marketing efforts.
Since the only way to prove that our marketing efforts are paying off is measure, measure, measure, the measurement and metrics section of this book gave me a good grounding on what I need to do in terms of metrics.
Overall, it's a great book, especially if you are looking at multiple channels to achieve your marketing goals.

As a consultant, I interact with marketers everyday. Everytime I begin a new engagement, I spend volumes of time creating a common language and understanding around what "multi-channel marketing" means in today's world...certainly not an efficient investment of my time or my client's dollars.

FINALLY, there is a book that meets MY standards on both the theory and practice of multichannel marketing. Akin's book "Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success" provides unique insight and understanding to help marketers either begin the process of executing more complete multi-channel marketing efforts, or refine existing programs.

What I found especially compelling about Akin's book was the very natural and organic progression within each chapter. Chapters open with a quick summary of a business challenge/opportunity. His descriptions (often complimented by case studies) are direct and to-the-point...easily consumed by the multi-channel newbie. As he digs deeper into each topic he offers perspective that even the most seasoned CMOs will find actionable nuggets of wisdom in (I LOVED the Chapter 6 on Measuring Lift Between On-line and Offline).

In closing - is there value in Akin's first book? No matter what your currently level of expertise is...this book will make you a better marketer.

In this book, Akin Arikan walks us through the whole process of measuring online and offline activities using Web Analytics. He presents both theoretical advices and live examples of how his theories have been (can be) applied.

As a Web Analyst and an online marketer I look forward to adding the methods presented in the book to my repertoire. The jargon alerts alone are worth the read.

The book is very well written and should be required reading for marketers and analysts on the web. The interaction between online and offline is becoming more and more important, and companies must understand how to integrate all their marketing efforts.

I warmly recommend reading this book.

As both a former and current CEO of Internet startups, I found numerous lessons learned and gems of perspective from Julia Wilkinson's My Life at AOL. Given her position in the trenches, and not in the board room, her story adds a refreshing perspective often lacking in other books by companies' founders and executives (e.g., like one of my favorites, Burn Rate).

I actively refer this book to several friends who have recently started Web 2.0 companies and who are experiencing the same issues Julia covers regarding starting and harnessing an online community. Personally, I have been able to apply similar lessons to my company and to several conversations where insight to the future comes from understanding the roots of the past pioneers such as AOL, especially from the perspective from the trenches.

Do you know what AOL's first vision was and why it failed? Julia covers that, among other topics, with pre-AOL interviews of the early, early days...

This book is great for anyone interested in finding out about how it feels to work at a small iffy start-up company. The author lets us climb on for the rollercoaster as the company goes through the initial ups and downs, on its way to becoming the largest internet provider in the world. It's filled with interesting facts and spiced up with enough personal accounts to make the reader feel like a real insider. Bravo!

I worked with Julia at AOL and she offers tales from a perspective I guarantee you haven't read anywhere else.

Kara Swisher's "AOL.COM" told the story from the executive level. Julia's "My Life At AOL" tells it from the perspective of the regular employees who made the service run on a day to day basis. It's a look at things that happened when AOL was a wacky little company; very different from today's media behemoth.

This book is a lively read--a brisk account of the energetic, imaginative and bright young people at the birth of AOL. It's enlivened by Ms. Wilkinson's breezy and engaging "voice." She mangages to give a sense of the atmosphere in the offices of the growing company with descriptions of brainstorming sessions illustrated with lots of colorful quotes. She presents well-thought out examples of the Internet as a powerful double-edged sword. While acknowledging its potentially negative aspects, she makes a strong case for it as a positive and highly beneficial tool. Being technologically challenged, I esepcially enjoyed the Appendix--A Cyber-Lingo Glossary:How To Speak AOL and the list of "smilies" and "emoticons," those wacky little lighthearted symbols that are shorthand ways of expressing emotions.

This book answered many of the financial questions that I was too ashamed to ask. Even though I went to business school, much of the financial world and the language that accompanies it was foreign to me. Rather than having to venture into this overwhelming territory unassisted, I read this book and was able to start making smart decisions about my finances and my life. I would strongly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn about money or improve their financial standing. Most importantly, the book was interesting and inspiring.

This book is an increadible resource for someone who is looking to increase their financial "common sense". After reading this book, I immediately contacted my financial advisor and consulted with him about some of Russell Bailyn's interesting perspectives (and I'm already seeing results!). Navigating the Financial Blogosphere is easy to read and easy to follow. It provides some great, practical tips which will help you increase your networth starting today! I highly, highly recommend it!

Russell Bailyn's views on today's financial market are inventive and refreshing. He's wealth of knowledge really shows and eventhough it may be his first book i'm sure it won't be his last. His ideas give me a new outlook on my personal finances and how I make decisions. This book is a must have!

This was a nice little book written by a young professional who works as a wealth manager. It's a personal finance or young person's financial planning book. I liked the way the book presented the material in clear and digestible snippets. I read a book not too long ago that was similar in format. See Blogging and Podcasting (ISBN: 1419584359). In both books the authors promote themselves through blogging. And instead of writing their books as a separate and distinct activity as compared to their blogs, they lift a lot of their content from their blogs and spruce it up a little before calling it a book.

This book has 27 chapters divided up into the following four sections:

1. First perspectives on money (chapters 1-5)
2. Building wealth requires planing (chapters 6-13)
3. Living in a financial world (chapters 14-21)
4. Think long-term about money management (chapters 22-27)

The chapters are short which is why I equate them to spruced-up blog entries. And the number of chapters is large, another reason this book has the feel of a blog rather than something that was put together originally as a book.

The book is well-written and easy to read and follow. It cites much of its content to Web sites and links that can be found online. If you want to learn about some of the things the Internet has to offer regarding personal finance and financial planning, then I highly recommend this book. If you are just wanting to familiarize yourself with personal finance and financial planning, then this would be a nice book to read, too. However, it's not a treatise on the subject. 5 stars!

Databinding is handled later, and lots of interesting stuff I wasn't knowledgeable about came sooner. Bravo. This is a great book that will always be on my desk! (I'm a professional developer with walls of books by Microsoft on Wrox, primarily.)

This was the 3rd or 4th WinForms book I purchased. The others were good, but they were lacking in detail. This book does a great job in explaining 'under the cover' details. The authors do a good job explaining DataBinding, Controls, GDI+, Form, Menus, Inheritance and much more.
This is more than a resource book. The first half is devoted to getting you up and running with building WinForms apps. The 2nd half is an incredible reference, one I turn to almost daily.

If you plan to use or are using .NET WinForm, please, do yourself a big favor, buy this book and leave it on your desk

The authors appear to go to great length for completeness in a companion reference for programmers creating DotNet Forms, an important new feature of the DotNet frameworks. We have been always looking for a capable web enabled report writer without integrating a third-party product, such as Crystal Reports for the Web. DotNet Forms promises in creating at least simple, yet dynamic, multi-paged reports without a whole lot of work.

DotNet provides for creating dynamic Excel-like forms for ASP.NET html. Additional form paging provides for DB presentation similar to Yahoo and eBay searches, which is a familiar and intuitive format. DotNet provides these DataGrid forms with the DotNet Forms API. The API architecture is listed in the last two-thirds of this book, which is an inch and a half thick.

While the authors claim to include a "very fast-paced" tutorial (p1) in the first third (313 pgs) of the book, the DataGrid portion is a mere 6 pages (p307-312), very steep indeed! I'd highly recommend its combined use with another MS Press book by Dino Esposito (0-7356-1578-0) which devotes about half of his book to DataGrid reports and code examples. Another is Jesse Liberty's O'Reilly book on VB.Net (0-596-00438-9) which has one chapter devoted to ADO.net (34pgs).

The publisher include a MS Visual Studio.Net Add-in on the accompanying CD which has the text of the book as integrated help files, 1.7MB MSI files for VS.Net 2K2 and 2K3. Appears a tad bit small? I have not tested the usefulness of the claimed dynamic integration of the O'Reilly Help files along with MS Help during coding process within VS. It appears that this is the initial product enhancement from this publisher. I wonder if an annotatable PDF file of the book would be more useful; at least this would be in a separate window. This tome was read at a local library.

At a local SQL Server Users Group meeting, a new technology that will embellish on the DataGrid and Forms was discussed and demoed. It is the forthcoming SQL Server 2K Reporting Services that will be a low/no cost add-on for SQL 2000 Server and authoring with a Visual Studio.Net 2003 download. It currently is in beta and will be released in 4Q03. It appears to be XML based and production reports can be rendered for browser, printer, PDF, and TIFF output. What a seemingly great idea.

Overall, this detailed 469-page reference on the DotNet Forms API appears needed for the programmer, although this is probably duplicates what's available on a MSDN subscription CD somewhere. The appendix includes another 69-page API term cross-reference and a 23-page index.

This was the 3rd or 4th WinForms book I purchased. The others were good, but they were lacking in detail. This book does a great job in explaing 'under the cover' details. The authors do a good job explaining DataBinding, Controls, GDI+, Form, Menus, Inheritace and much more.

This is more than a resource book. The first half is devoted to getting you up and running with building WinForms apps. The 2nd half is an incredible reference, one I turn to almost daily.

If you plan to use or are using .NET WinForm, please, do yourself a big favor, buy this book and leave it on your desk.

"George Varghese has had a remarkable impact on the real world of networking with his algorithmic innovations over many years. The networking research and development community is fortunate that
he has now distilled his knowledge in this very readable, insightful, and much-needed book." -- Yukuen Lai

Varghese explains a very specialised but critical field. He presupposes on your part an already extensive knowledge of TCP/IP and its routing protocols. The book usefully offers on its inside cover 15 principles for overcoming network bottlenecks. It seems fair to say that the bulk of the book is devoted to explaining and using these ideas. Undoubtedly, other books have elucidated most of these. But maybe not as explicitly and cogently as Varghese.

One key motivator mentioned in the text is to defend against network attacks. For this, it helps to be able to quickly analyse as many IP packets as possible. Perhaps an unfortunate commentary on today's Internet, inasmuch as this will be the most important reason for some of you to get this book.

This is an excellent, excellent text. Techniques and principles for building high performance distributed systems are hard to come by except through experience and talking to experts. There's a lot of knowledge in the community but this book is the first time to my knowledge that someone has collected it and presented it in a coherent framework. Even if you don't work with low level stuff, this book will help you learn to think in a "systemsy" way about high-performance designs.

The book describes in an unique way some of the algorithmic and system implementation details of network appliances. Some of the chapters (packet classification, forwarding and traffic measurements) might be know to readers familiar with the SIGCOMM and Infocom conferences: these chapters are excellent tutorials to some very advanced networking topics and can help readers to better understand papers from the main author published at Infocom/SIGCOMM.
Its probably the best networking book I've ever read....and I read a lot.

Overall I give this book two thumbs up. Here are a few things I got out of this book:

Under the section titled "security policies and operations lifecycle", I found the introduction very helpful. I like the way the topics are broken down into business needs, risk analysis, security policy development, followed by the operations lifecycle that included information on system monitoring maintenance, compliance checking, and incident response.

Under the section titled "what is a security policy", I also found this section helpful and the simple statements describing a security policy as a formal statement of rules where people are given access to an organizations technology information assets, was very concise and understandable.

Under the section titled "security policy enforcement considerations", I found it interesting that this was broken into several different sections of real-time technology enforcement, passive technology assisted compliance checking, non-technical compliance checking, and contractual compliance checking. This little section made policy enforcement crystal clear while providing a practical outline for policy enforcement.

Another helpful feature of this book was on page 45 where an outline of best practice steps are given. These four steps to building a best practice for security provided a decent roadmap for developing a practical security policy.

Under the section "secure networking threats", the descriptions provided for the attack process and attacker types was very enlightening. I also found it interesting to read about the Script Kittie, Crackers, and Elite network attackers.

The section also described vulnerability types as software, hardware, configuration, policy, and usage, which I also found to be a great outline and organized structure for understanding where these vulnerabilities lie.

Also in this section of "secure networking threats" on the summary page on 115 I found the attack summary table with scoring to be a very ingenious tool. This table breaks down the following attack elements and rates them according to detection difficulty, ease-of-use, frequency, impact and, overall rating. The following attack elements were included in this table: Buffer overflow, Identity spoofing, war dialling/driving, virus/word/Trojan horse, direct access, remote control software, probe scan, rootkit, Sniffer, application floating, udp spoofing, rouge devices, Web applications, data scavenging, man in the middle, distributed denial of service, TCP spoofing, Arp redirection spoofing, TCP Syn flood, IP spoofing, IP redirection, Smurf, transport redirection, MAC Flooding, Mac spoofing, network manipulation, and STP redirection. All in all I felt this was a very comprehensive list.

In the section titled "general design considerations", this section provided a fantastic overview of how to control physical access to facilities and the different methods for doing so including lock and key access, key card access, and key card access with TurnStyle. The layer 2 security considerations section covered a great bit of detail concerning general Protocol considerations as well as the Cisco specific protocol considerations.

In the chapter "Identity design considerations" the descriptions were also very helpful and understandable. This section outlined the basic foundation Identity concepts describing the differences between device and user Identity. On page 324 a great outline of the chain of events for Identity and authentication, authorization, and accounting is outlined. This step-by-step explanation was very helpful in understanding this process.

In chapter 14 the "campus security design" section, a very good explanation of what campus networks are made up of was given on page 536. This portion of the book also describes the campus trust model and expected threats. The threat mitigation and Identity considerations were also outlined in a very simple to follow way.

On page 541 the network design considerations for the campus are very well outlined with layer 2 considerations including explanations of stateful versus stateless ACL's and L3 versus L4 Filtering.

Overall this book is exceptional in the way it describes complex information and breaks down this information into simple to understand concepts. The applied knowledge questions at the end of each chapter were also very helpful along with the appendix B where the answers to these questions can be found.

This book is an outstanding education tool as well as a reference bible for network security.

This comprehensive textbook is ideal for information security architects tasked with designing secure networks, both as a teaching text and as a reference. It covers:
- Good practice network security design guidelines ('axioms')
- Purpose and definition of network security policies
- Good advice on designing the network security system (i.e. the overarching network security architecture into which individual network devices must fit) from the ground up (i.e. physical security to application security, OSI layers 1 to 7)
- Specific technical advice on configuring network devices for
security ('hardening')
- Technical descriptions of the vulnerabilities in network services, accompanied by advice on how to secure them
- Typical design considerations for network perimeter ('edge') security, internal network ('campus') security and remote access (teleworker) security
- Secure network management and network security management (compared and contrasted in 40 pages)

I appreciate the author's emphasis on architectural security design but he also succeeds in giving a reasonably comprehensive introduction to more specific elements of network security. This is not a hand-waving helicopter-overview of the topic but a far more substantial tome. At the same time, the clear writing style, simple diagrams and nuggets of practical advice make it an enjoyable read.

The book is liberally sprinkled with URLs to useful additional resources and the author maintains a website with up-to-date links and a sample chapter (www.seanconvery.com).

Each chapter concludes with exam-style review questions (with answers) and further questions intended to stimulate the reader to think about the material in their local organizational context. The topic almost inevitably involves loads of acronyms so thankfully a succinct glossary is included.

Three network security design examples (mini case studies) towards the end of the book demonstrate the techniques previously described. These are good for getting readers to practice thinking like a real network security architect.

Despite being published by Cisco Press, the book is not specifically about Cisco products. However, the examples and several of the security features are Cisco-specific. Given the market presence of Cisco, this is not a serious drawback but a little more balance would have added credibility (e.g. security vulnerabilities in LEAP, Cisco's wireless LAN authentication protocol, are not described but merely hinted-at).

All in all, this book has already proved its worth to me. I read it cover-to-cover in a couple of days and have already started using it as a reference. Recommended reading for those with a professional interest in information security architecture.

Welcome to the twenty-first century in the world of computers and networking. With more issues occurring that have negative affects on the environment that information technologists work in, the knowledge of information security is slowly becoming critical. Sean Convery presents a detailed guide into the world of designing a secure network environment. Within "Network Security Architecture", Sean delves into the whys, the hows, and most importantly the cause and effect. As you examine the table of contents alone, it becomes clear that he has spent a great deal of time researching and detailing numerous different components of a network environment that have to be examined and considered for proper network security.

A close look at the book's table of contents will point out different areas that any Network Engineering individual from the Junior Administrator to the Senior Architect needs to be knowledgeable in. Sean examines policy, threats and the technologies available, he details how to harden devices and describes items that need to be considered in designing either new networks or enhancing existing ones. For these reasons alone this book is necessary for anyone that manages any portion of a computer network. This book offers far more than an education of network security. It is clearly designed not only to educate individuals, but provide a single reference for all network security areas as well.

Like many Cisco Press books, "Network Security Architectures" chapters are divided into three sections --: an introduction, the body, and finally a summary. It is these summary sections that help the most. In For example, in Chapter 6 on pages 262 thru 264, the concept of Design Consideration is summarized with charts. Where individual summaries appear light or limited, the book enhances the information covered in a section called "Applied Knowledge". This section helps individuals quickly implement what is covered in extreme detail in the chapter. Don't just look at the summary and applied knowledge sections, because this would not do all the hard work Sean placed in the book justice. For instance, in Chapter 5 on Hardening Devices, Sean provides clear examples on how to configure devices for security and hardening. This topic alone has not similarly covered since O'Reilly's book on "Hardening Cisco Routers" and that one did not go to the level of how to configure the devices fully.

As anyone that is familiar with Cisco Technology and Cisco Systems knows, they routinely publish various "SAFE" documents on topics. This book takes input from those documents, combining them with other both real world examples and theory to provide a greater combined presentation. Like any Cisco documentation this book can either be read in its entirety from cover to cover or only the sections that are needed now. But as you read the book you will realize that while "SAFE" documents focus on key issues, this book details not only the issues and the possible alternatives, but provides reasoning for implementing the recommendations in clear English. Convery's book is both an excellent resource and a great guide. Its ability to present both the Cisco and the real world philosophy on network architecture is critical for all that work in this arena.

As I mentioned previously Convery, uses the Cisco "SAFE" documents as guide points, but those are only detailed references. His book takes them to the next logical level and as such I could spend hours and pages detailing all the other reasons someone should acquiring a copy of this book, but the key reason I believe is that it is a clear consolidated source to design, implement and support a secure and highly available network. But the simple fact is in this day and age with more and more Viruses, Worms, Trojan horses, Network Probe attacks and numerous other problems in the growing Internet can anyone not afford to plan a "SMART" and "SAFE" network architecture? That is the real question that should drive someone to consider this book for there library and refer to it on a regular basis. I know I have already.

I highly recommend this excellent reference book for networking and security practitioners in any size environment. The investment will save time and money, even if only a few of the recommendations are implemented. You will find yourself referring to it frequently.

I have read many books in the Cisco Press and this one is up there with the best in terms of practical use, technical depth and ease of reading. The author does a great job of laying out the book in a logical manner that is sure to help Security Architects take on the daunting task of network security design with a higher level of confidence. As a systems engineer responsible for large network designs, I have found this book to provide very good information for many scenarios, a multitude of good links to provide additional resources for discussed topics as well as out of scope topics, and also a good supplement for the backround knowledge required for the CCIE Security exam, for which I am currently preparing for. I consider this one as much a must have as Doyle for IP Routing or Clarke for LAN Switching.

Raymond Santini CCIE# 12315

I found this book to be very useful, providing clear background and easy to follow steps to order, plan and install a network either at home or in a small office. It covers both the DSL and cable flavors of broadband internet service, wired and wireless networks and security and virus protection -- everything one needs to setup a safe and sound home or small office network. It even provides straightforward directions for setting up computers to share printers!

I found the figures and troubleshooting tips to be especially helpful. In particular, showing how to recover when my DSL provider goes on the fritz (which, unfortunately does happen from time to time).

I highly recommend this book for readers looking for a practical, no nonsense, easy to follow guide for setting up home and small office networks and safely and securely connecting them to the internet.

"Networks in a Flash" is a great book on home networking that is easy to follow! There are easy to follow "recipes" for almost any home situation. I connected all my computers on the second floor of my home and the basement to a wireless D-Link router. The book covers versions of Microsoft Windows from 98 through XP. I created a network with old and new computers. My latest addition was a Windows XP laptop that was very easy to add in both a wired and wireless access mode to my network. The book emphasizes security and easy of use. I recommend it.

This book has been my "answer guide". I used it to network my Windows ME and Windows XP computers using a Linksys wireless router. I found the instructions in this book easy to follow. I was able to set the security settings on the wireless router to keep my home network safe from intruders. I was also capable of using a USB wireless adapter to quickly connect a desktop computer in another room to the Internet. In addition, I was also able to figure out how to share my printer with two computers! GREAT BOOK AND EXTREMELY EASY TO FOLLOW!...

As a social scientist, somewhat wary of the escalating technology, I found this book easy to read and understand. Even though I have only one PC, I wanted to have the protection and security that a router provides behind my cable modem. With this security arrangement and the virus protection software on my computer, I have been virus free.

The book gave me a high level of understanding of the internet and was easy to follow.I highly recommend this book to any novice.

I liked this book because it let me make my own card games with Pokemon with my brother. It also has a contest that I did for free! I liked it because you get to make your own cards anyway you want and you can also make cards that aren't with Pokemon. I made ones with dinos.

This new version of Blast is great for making card games with Pokemon. It's so much easier to understand! I really like "Pokemon Swap" too, but Blast lets you make games not just cards.

This edition of Blast is greatly improved over the first. An excellent group project for 4th graders (9 years old) and up.

Young people love Pokemon right now so I thought I'd try something different in art. I brought in ten copies of this book and walked students through the process of making their own made-up Pokemon on the cards. Now their energy is focused on their unique creations. A great idea, Alex and Gille.

I have done tons of work with NetWare and this is by far the best book written for NetWare 4.x. The information is well laid out, and to the point. I hope an updated version comes out some day. I highly recommend this book for day to day problem solvers, CNE's, or consultants.

A concise, well ordered handbook for Novell Intranetware. This book has saved me hours of searching through the various Novell product manuals. Well written and indexed it gets to the heart of the complex subject with clear explanations in a well laid out, portable format.

We all (at work) use this handbook as a quick reference. Nobody remembers everything, good for us that this book has it in it. Don't leave the office without it.

I took over a Novell network in my former position with absolutely NO knowledge of Novell other than the name. Needless to say I did an incredible amount of reading and time at the Novell Support site, but this book saved my life too many times to mention. Everything I needed for day to day operations of the network were only a few pages away. I can tell you it made me feel much more comfortable. If you administer a Novell network, this book is a must!