Introduction

This book is a straightforward discussion of the concepts, principles, and processes of many protocols in the TCP/IP protocol suite and how they are supported by Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. The focus of this book is on Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), referred to as Internet Protocol (IP), and associated transport and network infrastructure support protocols. This book provides an overview of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), but not in-depth technical details. For more information about IPv6 and its implementation in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, see Understanding IPv6, Second Edition by Joseph Davies (Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0735624467).

This book is primarily a discussion of protocols (what you might see on the wire during communication) and processes (how things work under the covers), rather than a discussion of planning, configuration, deployment, management, or application development. For a discussion of TCP/IP planning, configuration, deployment, and management, see Windows Server^® 2008 Networking and Network Access Protection (NAP) (Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0735624221), Help And Support for Windows Server 2008, and the Windows Server 2008 TechCenter at http://technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2008. For a discussion of TCP/IP application development using Windows Sockets, see the Microsoft Developer Network at http://msdn.microsoft.com.