Computer Networking : A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet (3rd Edition)

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Certain data-communication protocols hog the spotlight, but all of them have a lot in common. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet explains the engineering problems that are inherent in communicating digital information from point to point. The top-down approach mentioned in the subtitle means that the book starts at the top of the protocol stack--at the application layer--and works its way down through the other layers, until it reaches bare wire.

The authors, for the most part, shun the well-known seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol stack in favor of their own five-layer (application, transport, network, link, and physical) model. It's an effective approach that helps clear away some of the hand waving traditionally associated with the more obtuse layers in the OSI model. The approach is definitely theoretical--don't look here for instructions on configuring Windows 2000 or a Cisco router--but it's 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, at which routing takes place, is typical of the overall style. In discussing routing, authors James Kurose and Keith Ross explain (by way of lots of clear, definition-packed text) what routing protocols need to do: find the best route to a destination. Then they present the mathematics that determine the best path, show some code that implements those algorithms, and illustrate the logic by using excellent conceptual diagrams. Real-life implementations of the algorithms--including Internet Protocol (both IPv4 and IPv6) and several popular IP routing protocols--help you to make the transition from pure theory to networking technologies. --David Wall

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Revised to reflect the rapid changes in the field of networking, Computer Networking provides a top-down approach to this study by beginning with application-level protocols and then working down the protocol stack. An early emphasis is placed on application-layer paradigms and application programming interfaces to allow readers to get their "hands dirty" with protocols and networking concepts in the context of applications they will use in the industry. Networking today is much more (and far more interesting) than standards specifying message formats and protocol behaviors. Professors Kurose and Ross focus on describing emerging principles in a lively and engaging manner and then illustrate these principles with examples drawn from Internet architecture.

SYNOPSIS

Appropriate for a first course on computer networking, this textbook describes the architecture and function of the application, transport, network, and link layers of the internet protocol stack, then examines audio and video networking applications, the underpinnings of encryption and network security, and the key issues of network management. The third edition adds a chapter on wireless and mobile networks and sections on socket programming with UDP and web servers. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

This textbook introduces the underlying principles of networking while at the same time emphasizing Internet protocols and network applications. Chapters cover the application layer, transport layer, network layer, link layer, multimedia networking, security, and management. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

ACCREDITATION

Since January 1998, Keith Ross is a Professor and Department Head in the Multimedia Communications Department at Institute EurEcom, in Sophia Antipolis, France. From 1985 to December 1997, Keith Ross was with the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Systems Engineering, as Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor.

He has published over 40 papers in leading journals and has published a book on multiservice loss models for broadband telecommunication networks. Along with Jim Kurose, he is currently writing an online multimedia textbook on Internet protocols and data networks. He is or has been on the following editorial boards: Queuing Systems, Theory and Applications; Probability in the Engineering and Information Sciences; Operations Research; Telecommunications Systems; and IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. He was the Program Chairman of the 1995 INFORMS Telecommunications Conference. He received his MS from Columbia University (1981) in Electrical Engineering, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1985) in Computer, Information and Control Engineering.

Jim Kurose received a B.A. degree in physics from Wesleyan University in 1978 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Columbia University in 1980 and 1984, respectively. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, where he is also co-director of the Networking Research Laboratory of the Multimedia Systems Laboratory. He is currently serving a term as Chairman of the Department of Computer Science. Professor Kurose was a Visiting Scientist at IBM Research during the 1990/91academic year, and at INRIA and at EURECOM, both in Sophia Antipolis, France, during the 1997/98 academic year.

His research interests include real-time and multimedia communication, network and operating system support for servers, and modeling and performance evaluation. Dr. Kurose is the past Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Communications and of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. He has been active in the program committees for IEEE Infocom, ACM SIGCOMM, and ACM SIGMETRICS conferences for a number of years.

He is the six-time recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award from the National Technological University (NTU), the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award from the College of Science and Natural Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, and the recipient of the 1996 Outstanding Teaching Award of the Northeast Association of Graduate Schools. He has been the recipient of a GE Fellowship, IBM Faculty Development Award, and a Lilly Teaching Fellowship. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of ACM, Phi Beta Kappa, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi.