Network Warrior by Gary A. Donahue Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $25.66 You Save: $19.33 (43%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Network Warrior
Book Review: Fills a LOT of gaps
Summary: 5 Stars
This book won't help you become an OSPF expert, but it will help you become a better network engineer. It's one of the only books I've every seen that embraces the fact that our jobs have a gruesome amount of logistics inherent to them, far more than a programmer or DBA, for example. I'v spent the last 2+ years at MySpace, and Donahue's descriptions of the problems faced by explosive growth brought a tear to my jaded, burnt-out eye. Finally someone understands we're not just idiots! (If you disagree, try scaling from 10Gbps in transit to 80 in one year, then shoot me an email :) ) Even better, since his anecdotes and advice on the practicalities of our niche are often only mildly technical, they're easy to read. I was able to blast through 100 pages at a time, often laughing and nodding, while still learning a new spin on simple things like IP address allocation.
On a more technical level, this book fills a ton of gaps that aren't covered anywhere else, or the documentation is difficult to find or understand. The section on storm-control was excellent in this sense. If you do nothing else, go to Borders and read that section. It's useful information in its own right, but demonstrates Donahue's tendency to spin something simple in a way that shows you something new. I picked up a lot of weird details in this book, even if I skimmed half of it.
I also noticed a lot of his sidenotes pointed out some very common pitfalls, such as appending a space to your password in PPP on one side of a link by using the context help, then not doing so on the other end, and wondering why your stupid link won't come up.
So what are the cons? None really, just a few things I would have liked to see in there (none of which detract from the 5-star rating).
- I would have liked to hear how Donahue approaches the issue of spares and money, specifically convincing management to buy spares, or hiding them in budgets
- The NTP section could have used a blurb on anycast, which works beautifully for NTP
- I would have liked to see him mention the troubleshooting assistance that change management provides, since if something breaks and your engineers issued a change request, you pretty much know where to start
- I'm also a huge fan of peer-review for CM, as having a manager rubber-stamp your ACL update is ... of limited technical value
I'd say that, along with about 5-10 other books that go into hardcore depth on various technologies (Doyle's routing books, Halabi's BGP, QOS Voice exam guide, etc.), this book should be on a shelf near you at work. If you're already pretty advanced it's a really quick read that tosses some golden nuggets at you when you least expect it.
One more thing, since one guy punished the book's rating for being Cisco-centric, I'd like to take a moment to point to the Book Description, specifically the part that says, "Network Warrior is a Cisco-centric book". If you're at a book store (do they still exist?) and thus do not have access to this description, please see the first paragraph on the back of the book, specifically the part that says, "...helps you deal with real Cisco networks..."
Book Review: First Ever Review for Amazon
Summary: 5 Stars
Great book. Highly recommended for anyone who needs intermediate network skills. Go beyond your entry level cert. I got this and the linux network cookbook plus some Red Hat specific material to prepare for the RHCE- should keep me busy for awhile.Book Review: Cisco-specific book
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this book because of the rave reviews here, and I have been a bit disappointed so far. Why? Not because of the author's style which is clear and concise - but because of expectations based on reviews I read, and the book title "Network Warrior." I expected a book which would cover all protocols, not just ones used in Cisco-land.
If this book were called "Cisco Network Warrior" I would certainly give it 4 or 5 stars.
Here are two examples - I want to implement GVRP in a mixed-vendor environment, but this book is of no help. GVRP is in fact supported on cisco equipment, but there is not even a passing reference to it in the section on the cisco-proprietary VTP. In addition I was hoping for a clear description of the standards-based LACP, but it is only given brief mention in a section on Etherchannel.
To his credit, the author mentions that he takes a Cisco-centric view in the book.. It's just that I was misled by one of the amazon reviews.
Book Review: Network's Best Starting Reference
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent book on networks, because it scratches the surface on all aspects of networks, including Hardware and Software. The writing is very easy to read and understand, it gives real situation problemas and it also explains how to promote your ideas, troubleshooting and many more. I have learned a lot from this book and it think is one of the best networking books out there.
Highly recommended!!
Book Review: Myth Busted!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this book based on the glowing reviews here, and I was not disappointed! The chapter on Auto-Negotiation itself is worth its weight in gold. Although the chapter is very short, it busted a myth that I found to be believed by every network engineer with whom I work, including myself. Armed with this new insight, we eliminated a congestion problem at one of our high-traffic sites. The concept is simple, but we came to realize that this topic wasn't covered during any of our years of training.
Another great chapter is the one on Traffic Congestion. This chapter helped me better understand the data provided by the SHOW INTERFACE command, and that helped me solve congestion issues at another site.
Mr. Donahue's writing is clear and concise. I highly recommend this book to all network engineers and administrators, especially those utilizing Cisco equipment. And this is only after reading four chapters!