Reddit Reddit reviews Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition)

We found 10 Reddit comments about Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition)
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10 Reddit comments about Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition):

u/[deleted] · 4 pointsr/sysadmin

A lot of recommendations for TCP/IP Illustrated. It's a great book, but it's more concerned with host TCP/IP stacks, rather than actual network hardware. In my opinion: Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols, another excellent textbook which has very little intersection with the TCP/IP Illustrated series covers more relevant information for a hands-on network administrator. Steven's has a developers mindset approach, so if you're working with a host TCP/IP stack (as a developer, or tuning as a systems administrator) it might actually be more handy, but if you don't dabble much as a developer (if gethostbyname() or sockaddr_t means nothing to you then this isn't the book for you). As someone who has read many of these books and worked as a network admin for the past 7+ years, the theory and knowledge gleaned by the book is incredibly useful but not essential for a network administrator.

The aforementioned link to the book I mentioned in my opinion is wonderful and definitely worth reading. Furthermore, original RFCs make for great reading when the time is right. Also, buff up on network security and cryptography, for which I would recommend: Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World; probably the best introductory book on this matter.

Once you've mastered the basics of being a network administrator, then you should broaden your scope and maybe revisit TCP/IP Illustrated and maybe Unix Network Programming and other great books on the topic. I would also recommend picking up programming languages and the like, writing your own tools, maybe reimplementing traceroute to get an understanding of low-level network programming (and of course the traceroute algorithm). I should also mention, for a systems admin, it's essential you learn how to automate/program. Don't trust the tools that you're given, at best they're mediocre, at worst they don't work or come with support. You will need to be able to readily provide the support that you won't get from vendors, and it's always going to be an uphill battle. Less so with network administration, but it happens quite a bit as well.

Anyway, that's my advice. But when I read TCP/IP Illustrated as the essential book for a Network Administrator, it reminds me of people suggesting The Art of Computer Programming to a novice programmer. Those books are more advanced than you expect.

u/lil_cain · 3 pointsr/networking
  • Buy (and read) Radia Perlman's book
  • Learn to program. You shoudl have at least enough of a language to automate basic tasks. Doesn't really matter what language - I'd choose python, but it really doesn't matter
  • Learn some linux. Most of the applications that exist around networking run on linux. So you should be able to compile your own apps, add cronjobs, add things to init. You don't need to be a super linux guy - just have enough to know your way around. This'll help quite a lot in university, as well.
  • Get a job. I got my first job in networks because I'd call centre experience previously. Experience in a job with computers is valuable. Experience in a job talking to people on a phone is valuable. Try and spend your summers doing one, the other, or both.
  • Join the college computer society. If possible, go to a college with a good computer/networking society. Something like University Edinburgh's TARDIS. The contacts you make there are pretty invaluable, and the skills you'll pick up don't hurt either .
u/Wax_Trax · 3 pointsr/networking

I'd be interested if there is something like what you're looking for out there. I don't think there is.

One of the things I've discovered over the years is how much of these "golden nuggets of networking history" are sprinkled about in various non-certification networking textbooks. They're generally not in certification-oriented books because there isn't enough room, but they are quite often found in textbooks that cover particular networking topics.

For example, one of my favorites is contained in Developing IP Multicast Networks. Beau Williamson writes:

> There’s an interesting story as to why only 23 bits worth of MAC address space was allocated for IP multicast. Back in the early 1990s, Steve Deering was bringing some of his research work on IP multicasting to fruition, and he wanted the IEEE to assign 16 consecutive Organizational Unique Identifiers (OUIs) for use as IP multicast MAC addresses. Because one OUI contains 24 bits worth of address space, 16 consecutive OUI’s would supply a full 28 bits worth of MAC address space and would permit a one-to-one mapping of Layer 3 IP multicast addresses to MAC addresses. Unfortunately, the going price for an OUI at the time was $1000 and Steve’s manager, the late Jon Postel, was unable to justify the $16,000 necessary to purchase the full 28 bits worth of MAC addresses. Instead, Jon was willing to spend $1000 to purchase one OUI out of his budget and give half of the addresses (23 bits worth) to Steve for use in his IP multicast research.

And that's why we have a 32:1 overlap of multicast IP addresses to multicast MAC addresses today :-)

There are tons of these kinds of things sprinkled about in Radia Perlman's Interconnections book as well.

u/Cheeze_It · 2 pointsr/networking

Radia Perlman's book here. It is fantastic to see the world in which all this stuff started from.

I never knew IS-IS had EIGHT levels.

u/networkgrad · 2 pointsr/networking

Get a copy of this

u/d3phoenix · 1 pointr/networking

Interconnections by Radia Perlman -- It has an L1/L2 focus, so you'll also need to read TCP/IP illustrated. After that, go for the CiscoPress CCNA books if you're taking the Cisco path.

u/thehackeysack01 · 1 pointr/ccnp

STP Algorithm

  1. Select a root bridge
  2. select a lowest cost path to the root bridge
  3. disable all other root paths

    each case has a way to deal with ties.

    I strongly recommend you buy a copy of Radia Perlman's "Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols" and read the sections where the person who wrote the STP standard explains her work. I found it to be the clearest explanation of the protocol I have read and studied to date.
u/network_janitor · 1 pointr/networking

I took general networking courses in college as part of my major and honestly, I didn't learn much. If you want a good book on general networking, read this fantastic book by Radia Perlman:

Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Interconnections-Bridges-Switches-Internetworking-Protocols/dp/0201634481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321155480&sr=8-1

If it's a college course where you can get a CCNA at the end, I'd recommend taking that.