Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet Book

Certain data-communication protocols hog the spotlight, but they all have a lot in common. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet explains the engineering problems inherent in communicating digital information from point to point. The top-down approach mentioned in the subtitle means the book starts at the top of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol stack--with the application layer--and works its way down through the other six layers until it reaches bare wire. The approach is definitely theoretical--don't look here for instructions on configuring Windows 2000 or a Cisco router--but it is relevant to reality and should help anyone who needs to understand networking as a programmer, system architect or even administration guru.The treatment of the network layer, where routing takes place, is typical of the style overall. In discussing routing, authors Kurose and Ross explain (by way of lots of clear, definition-packed text) what routing protocols need to do: find the best route to a destination. They then present the mathematics that determine the best path, show some C code that implements those algorithms and illustrate the logic with excellent conceptual diagrams. Real-life implementations of the algorithms--including Internet Protocol (both IPv4 and IPv6) and several popular IP routing protocols--help you make the transition from pure theory to networking technologies. --David WallRead More