Reflections on the Past :: ConneXions – The Interoperability Report
Written by Stefan Fouant
Way back in 1987, before there was the the "Internet Protocol Journal" and other notable publications which cover various aspects of Internet Technologies, there was "ConneXions - The Interoperability Report". At the time, aside from reading RFCs or Internet-Drafts for more information on various protocols, this publication was the defacto resource for informative analysis of various protocols and their operation. A quick glance at the articles and you'll see long-time industry heavy-hitters such as Doug Comer, Jon Postel, and Vint Cerf listed as the authors. This is an invaluable resource for those of you who want to understand the history and evolution of various Internet protocols commonly in use today.
Book Review :: OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks
Written by Stefan Fouant
OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks
by Jeff Doyle
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-13: 978-0321168795
A welcome addition to any networking library
If you consider yourself a student of routing protocols and enjoy coverage of graph theory from the perspective of its application to link-state routing protocols, this text will certainly be a welcome addition to your library. This book not only provides information regarding 'how' link-state routing protocols work, it also provides information regarding 'why' the link-state routing protocols behave as they do, and why the protocol designers made certain choices in the development of these protocols. While it might seem a daunting task especially to the novice reader to learn about two routing protocols side-by-side, it is this treatment which makes this text so worthwhile. Being able to compare these two protocols and identify their similarities and differences simultaneously will ultimately help the network designer pick the right protocol for the job in a given network environment.
This book goes beyond IGP fundamentals by giving practical advice to the network designer which can assist in the planning and implementation of a scalable IGP deployment. For example, in the chapter on Area Design, the author states that "a useful guideline when designing a network is that network control traffic should never exceed 5 percent of the available bandwidth of any link in the network, and in normal circumstances should not exceed 1 percent". The author then presents various formulas which can be used to determine the amount of bandwidth used by the protocol control traffic based on the number and type of LSAs which are expected to be present in a given network. Arguably one of the best chapters in the book is the chapter on Scaling. This chapter has some of the best coverage of the various modifications which router vendors make to their link-state protocol implementations in order to make routers perform calculations more rapidly, enhance flooding of Link-State updates, and other changes designed to make the protocols scale to support very large networks.
I am a stickler for accuracy, especially when it comes to technical textbooks. I pride myself on my ability to spot technical and grammatical errors in texts such as these, however I must say as I read this book I was very impressed that I found very little errors beyond just the simple grammatical and typographical. Jeff Doyle is an experienced writer, and it should come as no surprise that the technical content in this book is extremely well-vetted, accurate, and error-free. Ultimately, if you are a network operator, designer or architect and are interested in broadening your understand of link-state protocols coupled with the ability to more fully understand the technical distinctions between OSPF and IS-IS, this book is without a doubt one of the best options on the market today.
Book Review :: Designing and Developing Scalable IP Networks
Written by Stefan Fouant
Designing and Developing Scalable IP Networks
by Guy Davies
Hardcover: 302 pages
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN-13: 978-0470867396
Decent information with a hefty price tag...
The title of this book "Designing and Developing Scalable IP Networks" would lead one to believe that reading this book would give the reader special insight into certain architectural approaches that would enable the network designer to build very large and expansive networks. And while the book certainly did provide some useful information, I found it lacking somewhat in details. The author does not delve into the minutiae of the various protocols, such as message types, protocol interaction, etc. Instead, the author assumes the reader already has a solid understanding of the basic principles of IP networking and the protocols associated with IP routing and switching. The author states early on that the book is meant to "examine the architectural and design principles that can be applied to designing and building scalable IP and MPLS networks", however after a thorough reading I did not find that I was substantially more educated in the subject matter. And herein lies the crux - this book, which is priced in at a whopping $130 - is far more expensive than other texts of a similar nature, some of which cover far more expansive material and cost considerably less. Furthermore, the book is too light on details to be sufficiently useful to someone who is new to the industry and looking to gain a better understanding of what is required to build large-scale networks, and is unlikely to provide the experienced network architect with useable knowledge beyond that which he or she may already possess.
That being said, there is decent treatment of MPLS and Generalized MPLS, MPLS VPNs, QoS, and IPv6. And there certainly are a few good nuggets of information to be found throughout the book. For example, there is very good information on route-reflection, such as the pro's and con's of using the same cluster-id on a pair of route-reflectors running in a pair. It also examines practical deployment information for such mechanisms as graceful-restart, citing the fact that enabling BGP graceful-restart without enabling a similar mechanism in the IGP is likely to reduce the benefit of enabling such a mechanism in the first place. And while this is one of the few texts that I have seen on the market that broaches the subject of graceful-restart, I welcome the author to include more information on this subject in subsequent editions.
All in all I would say that this is a good desk side reference if one wants a text which covers the main protocols and mechanisms in use in large Service Provider networks, but if you are looking for a text which will enable you to build large-scale networks you might be somewhat disappointed in the treatment, especially considering the hefty price tag of this item.
Recent Tweets
- RT @brasswax: Fouants I follow: @zfouant @sfouant @christinefouant ^SF Wow, thx Jason. I had no idea my mum and sis were on Twitter.
- RT @JuniperEducate: RT @robWcam: 50% off all O'Reilly Ebooks today. Pickup Junos Security today! http://t.co/FIHRjiz9 ^SF Definitely rec ...
- Life is Good!
- RT @briankrebs: Microsoft to ZeuS Botmasters: Abandon Your Inboxes http://t.co/uAxjIRsN
Recent Posts
- What’s a Steiner Tree?
- Preparation Tips for the JNCIE-SEC Exam
- Black Hat OSPF Vulnerabilities: Much Ado About Nothing
- Juniper SRX Tips :: Altering Default-Deny Behavior
- Juniper SRX Tips :: Uniform Security Policy Modification
Juniper News
- Juniper’s New Network Platform Architecture May 18, 2012
- The old wall is crumbling May 16, 2012
- Quick Facts about vGW Antivirus and IDS May 14, 2012
- IBM, Juniper, and open data center architectures – our shared view May 11, 2012
- Juniper Supports Open Source Cloud Computing May 10, 2012
ArborSERT
- Measuring Botnet Populations May 2, 2012 Jose Nazario
- ASERT, ATLAS and meaningful security capabilities April 24, 2012 klamb
- DDoS Attacks on SSL: Something Old, Something New April 24, 2012 jlewis
- A DDoS Family Affair: Dirt Jumper bot family continues to evolve April 5, 2012 cwilson
- It’s not the end of the world: DarkComet misses by a mile March 16, 2012 jedwards
VMware News
Cloud Computing
Monthly Archives
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- February 2009
- December 2008
- October 2007
- June 2006
Categories
- Announcements
- Book Reviews
- Data Center
- DNS
- DoS/DDoS
- Firewalls
- Hacking Tools
- High Availability
- Internet History
- Interviews
- IPv6
- Juniper
- Juniper Certifications
- MPLS
- Multicast
- Network Design
- Network Security
- Podcasts
- Presentations
- Privacy
- Routing Protocols
- Server Virtualization
- VPLS
