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Title: Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (6th Edition) by William Stallings ISBN: 0-13-012939-9 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 15 April, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $91.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Too bad - Stallings has written better...
Comment: This book was used as the text for a LAN course I took as part of a Masters degree in Telecommunications and Networking. At first, I was excited, because we had used Stallings text on Cryptography and Network Security and I had learned a good bit from it. He also appears to have a de facto standard text on data communications, which MANY of my peers own (I do not). After working intimately in the networking business for 3-4 years, it was interesting to read Stallings take on things, but there are serious problems with this book:
1.) Stallings tends to 'list and explain', i.e. provides a list of concepts and then goes into detail on each piece. This is a fine organizational structure, but tends to give weight to things that aren't necessarily that important - and there are many things in networking that I find gain mention, but aren't used in reality such as infrared wireless networks and LLC. Why does he bother with them?
2.) The cover mentions 'switched ethernet'. It makes NO appearance in the text whatsoever. There is about 1/2 a page on something called 'dedicated token ring' that to the initiated is obviously switched token ring.
3.) The typos - they are truly annoying. 80% are minor - typos, really. Others are serious and not something a beginner is going to catch!
Stallings seems to be a 'professional author' considering the number of books he's written. I suspect he pores over references and standards documents and then distills the information into a book like this one. Some of the chapters seem to be pulled from his other books (SNMP and Network Security). You could do the same, but his book would save you time. I would recommend waiting for a later edition and hope that the typos have been caught and corrected. The book would then serve as as good intro to a beginner (although probably only in a classroom environment) or a intermediate. You can then go and start looking at things more in depth by looking at the standards yourself.
More specifically:
chapter 1-2: basic intro and telecomm topics. No comments Chapter 3-Protocols & the TCP/IP suite. Reasonable treatment, but the appendix on IP, TCP, and UDP is a little too short. IPv6 is only a paragraph? Chapter 4-Topologies and transmission media - Dull, if necessary. Probably too technical to most people (but not THAT technical) compared to other books on network cabling. Again, Stallings is heavier on theory than the practicality. Chapter 5-Protocol Architecture - this is supposed to be an 'intro' to more detailed stuff that comes later, but outlines the issues. Not an organizational technique that everyone cares for. Chapter 6-Logical Link Control - Does anybody REALLY use this?? This deserved its own chapter? Chapter 7-Ethernet LAN's - a good technical treatment of shared ethernet, but where's the switched? Covers (1+ pages) Autonegotiation which I appreciated (hadn't seen it before). Gigabit etherenet gets about 3-1/2 pages (half of which is pictures). Chapter 8-Token Ring Lans & Mans-Good technical information on Token Ring and FDDI (my first exposure to these details. Chapter 9-Fibre Channel - Despite Stallings penchant for deatils there seems to be a lot of details missing here, but I didn't see anything better on the web. FC may still be too new? Chapter 10-Wireless LANS. The covereage of Infrared is a waste of space. Important details about how the frame in 802.11 is used are missing and there is zero mention of 802.11a, which is probably too recent for inclusion. Chapter 11-ATM LANs. I didn't read, but looked like a fine intro. The chapter 11 appendix covers ATM itself and AAL's, but there is no AAL2. That's fine since this is a LAN book, but it says AAL2 hasn't been defined (circa 2000). I don't believe that is true. Chapter 12&13 - Bridges & Internetworking. I didn't read. Again, a short, theory-heavy, intro to the subjects by the look of it. Chapter 14-Network management - Didn't read. Chapter 15-LAN performance. I was most appreciative of this chapter which is hard-to-find information. It wasn't necessarily consistent, pulling info from many places, but I don't think you can find a better intro to the theory of network performance behavior. And, it stresses 'back of the envelope' calculations for performance, which, ironicaly enough is a very practical approach. Too bad about those serious typos on pages 430, 435, 438, and 453 (some in the figures, some in the equations).
Rating: 1
Summary: A Whole Lot about Nothing in Particular
Comment: Recently I purchased William Stallings' Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (6th Edition), published by Prentice Hall, so that I could learn the fundamentals of how networks actually work. At a hefty $, plus express shipping to my home in Brazil, the book totaled $, plus change. It was not money well spent, and I have to say that Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (6th Edition) is probably the all-time worst reference or textbook I have ever encountered. I think it's poorly organized, poorly written, and the material is confusing and poorly presented.
If you enjoy a good wild goose chase, scratching your head while flipping endlessly back and forth through pages to check and recheck facts and figures, and if abstract explanations for abstract concepts blow your skirt up, then Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (6th Edition) is for you. However, if clearly explained and solidly demonstrated concepts are important for you to gain an understanding of a complex subject, then run far, far away from this book. It's a whole lot about nothing in particular.
While the full-color cover is impressive, the content--printed on thin, cheap black-and-white paper apparently without the benefit of a spellchecker--isn't. After politely emailing the author with corrections for typos in the first chapter (at his request in the Intro), I realized while reading Chapter Two that this was going to be a never-ending chore. Instead of continuing to send the author corrections for each chapter, I decided that it would be to my benefit to recommend that the publishing company supply the author with an editor on the next go-round.
Although I know considerably more about networks in general than I did when I started, it's not due to anything I gained from the book. Instead, my knowledge is the result of a continuing and ongoing Internet search in an attempt to clarify and explain the concepts Stallings presents. The book's fifteen chapters cover three major areas: 1)Technical Background, 2)LAN/MAN Architecture, and 3)LAN/MAN systems. Each chapter presents highly technical and hard-to-understand explanations of the topics, and ends with sections on "Recommended Readings and Websites" and "Study Questions."
Curiously, the chapters' study questions seem to be related to the chapter material in a strangely abstract way. They're useful only if you think like a rocket scientist. The author sends you on a virtual scavenger hunt in order to solve the problems, and he never provides clear, easily defined examples of the concepts that he attempts to explain.
Stallings acknowledges that the material can be confusing and at one point says, incredibly, that it will be explained later. He states that "The preceding discussion has been somewhat abstract and should become clearer as specific techniques are discussed" in a later chapter (p. 131). "SHOULD become," but in my view, nothing is ever clarified. Numerous references throughout the book to other texts to help explain difficult concepts leave me with the feeling that Stallings is aware that much is missing from his explanations and that he simply hopes someone else will do a better job.
Additionally, according to the preface, the book focuses on other key areas such as "performance, internetworking, and network management" (Preface). Yet, useful information about these subjects tends to be buried deep within the confusing text.
If you're a network expert and like to dazzle yourself by reading printed matter on things familiar, this book should keep you entertained. But if you don't know anything about network systems and want to learn, don't waste your money. You can learn more about basic networking concepts by reading some older books on network security (Maximum Security, by Anonymous, for example), or by searching the Net.
But don't use the sites suggested by Stallings. Like much of this poorly researched and apparently hastily written text, the links don't provide information specifically related to the subject at hand and they're often unreliable. Do an Internet search. You'll learn a whole lot more about networks on your own than from this textbook, and at a whole lot better price.
Rating: 2
Summary: OK, but there are much better.
Comment: I didn't find this book terribly interesting, whereas I found Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Computer Networks _very_interesting. I'd advise checking out Tanenbaum in addition (or instead of ) to checking out this book!
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