This book is a resource for network architects who must create solutions for emerging network environments in enterprise data centers. You'll find information on how to leverage Sun™ Open Network Environment (Sun ONE) technologies to create Services on Demand solutions, as well as technical details about the networking internals. The information presented here is based on actual network engineering experience that includes network product development and real-world customer experiences. The focus of this book is limited to the design of network architectures that support Web services-based, multi-tier architectures. However, it covers everything from the edge data center switch to the server network protocol stacks.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 2 Ratings

A complilation of what you can find on the Internet for free - 2005-02-03
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a lot of general information as well as a lot of incredibly detailed information and examples. It is not light reading at all. However, I don't know that this book really will be of any benefit to anyone except someone who knows networking but has never worked with Sun systems or a Sun user who is migrating to network administration.

Even then, the need for this book is questionable.

The information about the various layers of TCP stack can be found in any TCP/IP primer that is available on the Internet. Even the concepts of Quality of Service and load balancing can be found in many places. Sure, they won't necessarily be meant specifically for Sun hardware and software, but the principles are the same regardless of which platform you are using.

With respect to Sun hardware and kernel settings, there is nothing in this book that you cannot get for free on the Internet. In fact, most or all of the information in this book regarding the various Sun networking interface cards is on Sun's technical support web site, SunSolve. Hardware diagrams, hardware specifics, and tunable kernel parameters are all available on SunSolve. There was little or nothing in all of chapter 5 that a quick visit to SunSolve could not have given to me. The only benefit that this book has over SunSolve is that all of the information is in a single book rather than in multiple InfoDocs.

Even concepts of network availability and design are somewhat second-nature to most network administrators, I would think. Perhaps this book will indeed be a help to those who are beginner network administrators. When we all make our first network, it's almost always a flat network in a single IP range. This book might help to broaden a network administrator's view to the concepts of multiple subnetting and high availability. But on the other hand a beginner network administrator should not be put in the position to design and implement a highly-available, enterprise-wide network anyway.

The very title of this book is misleading as well. Networking concepts and networking technology are topics that are necessary for any kind of network implementation, regardless of platform and software. Yet this book intentionally limits itself to Sun ONE. Not everyone who has a Sun network uses Sun ONE, nor are the principles of network concepts and technology restricted to networks that are only meant for web services. Many Sun shops use their Sun hardware for databases, data warehousing, and file services that have little or no web integration. This book needlessly suffers from tunnel vision when it would probably have been better served as a general Sun networking manual or even a book that can be used across all types of operating systems with a focus on Sun technology. The subtitle of this book should be A Sun ONE Designer's Resource.

I can very easily see this book on the shelf of someone who is experienced with Sun from a hardware or operating system point of view but is just starting out with networking. Unfortunately, I can't see how this book would be of any real value to an experienced Sun network administrator who has fast access to SunSolve, unless (s)he just wants the convenience of not having to go to SunSolve. At a list price of US$46, that administrator must **really** not want to go to SunSolve.

Excellent Book for Datacenter networks - 2005-02-25
Reviewer Rating:
This book seems to be a good reference for IT staff who want
to better understand networking in the datacenter edge segment.
This is the only networking book that I found that covers issues
related to servers, network interface cards and the access
switches and routers.

The book covers important concepts in depth that are not found
anywhere else. For example ch 3 describes how TCP tunable
variables are grouped into functions such as flow control,
congestion control and how they work. In particular this
chapter describes how the data packets are impacted by
the tcp tunable variables, using the Solaris implementation as
example. I always see suggested tunable recommendations in
the manuals, but they never explain how they work. This book
is the first place where I was finally able to understand
how these TCP tunables work. There is also a free sun blueprint
available, that looks like came right out of this book, which
is also available from informIT. It is not only an excellent
description of how tcp tunables work, but helpful when
optimizing performance.


Ch 5 offered some good insights on how the gigabit ethernet
device driver worked. I did not find this anywhere else.
P.139 to 169 contained really nice insights on how the
gigabit ethernet driver works, including the unique
features of the NIC and driver, including a nice description of
how packets are recieved and transmitted. This RX TX architecture
on p.145 and related are not available anywhere else and was
clearly written by an expert who probably wrote the driver
himself. These days marketing staff are the ones writing
print.

Ch 6 and 7 was very useful to us, in the sense it gave us
a great starting point for greenfield deployments of web
based applications. We were able to leverage the designs and
customize for our purposes. On p.326 I found the configs very
useful. For example a desc on how to tie in the port availability to vrrp, allowing the router with the most available ports or links to the servers to be promoted to Master. It is insights like these that IT staff like myself,
found to be very helpful and cleared up a few grey areas.


In summary, this book is probably intended for IT datacenter staff who manage and design networks that fall into to the access layer segment. I want to understand how all the pieces work and inter relate, from the tcp stack, to network interface card to the L2 access switch(various patterns are offered) to the L3 default router(vrrp), appliances such as SSL, loadbalancing etc. This is the only book I found that actually
compared several Load Balancers, Firewalls and SSL appliances and
described how they work. I was able to understand and use it in
our production network!

This is pretty much the material required to deploy web based applications into a network infrastructure.


Dave

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