Like Shepard's other tomes, this book does a great job of addressing the one area of today's public network that's not only a source of contention (pun intended), but also the area that's undergoing the most radical evolution in the early 21st century.
As someone who works for a major Bell company product managing a metro Ethernet product, I can tell you that Shepard examines the activity in this space perfectly. MANs are the hot area right now, as carriers cope with how to address the bottleneck that exists between legacy transport technologies (i.e. DS-n) and the near-infinite capacity of today's long-haul networks (thanks to DWDM). If you're looking for an understanding of how this area is being addressed, this is the right book. And Steve's usual conversational, not-too-technical writing style make it all the better.I strongly recommend this book.It's relevant !!
Product Description
Broadband in the Metro Area has proven to be telecom's one bright spot in 2001 - all the long haul backbone capacity in the world does you no good if you can't move your data through the Metro bottleneck. But service providers are wrestling with all manner of technology choices (SONET? DWDM? Ethernet? The coming 10Gig Ethernet?), and also face the challenge of easily and effectively accessing SANs and VPNs. Quality of service issues are crucial in recruiting and maintaining customers
Steven Shepard lays bare the tricks and traps awaiting service providers in the metro area space, detailing the technological challenges and opportunities in his trademark lucid, humorous prose.
From the Back Cover
GET SHEPARDED TO THE REAL DEAL ON MANs
Promising delivery of backbone-size bandwidth locally, where it's needed, the metro area glows with vast profit potential--and some of the most brazen hype and outrageously confusing counterclaims in communications. Now Steven Shepard puts things in focus. One of tech's top writers, Shepard brings you clarity, breadth, and depth of vision--and a winning wit--to make understanding metro area networking a pleasure.
You must read this book if--
* You intend to explorethe most potentially lucrative area of telecom
*Unlimited bandwidth appeals to you
* You work in communications management or technology but are not thoroughly versed in metro area networking
* It's your job to open the MAN bottleneck and let the bandwidth flow
* Robust recovery, ease of local routing, and features such as QoS (Quality of Service), OSS (Operations Support Systems), and MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) could be useful bottleneck-breakers
* Orders of magnitude increases in bandwidth on a given strand of fiber are desirable
* The question of which technologies are most likely to succeed in MANs falls into your need-to-know category
A roadmap to Sonet, DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing), Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, 10 Gb Ethernet, Bluetooth, and other technologies in the MAN would be a valuable commodity
* Knowing how VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and SANs (Storage Area Networks) fit into Metro Area Networks sounds rewarding
* The words dynamic routing, bandwidth increase, and packet addressing send shivers down your spine
* You have a stake in business, and your business has a stake in the Internet
* Investing in businessescrucial to the future of the Internet makes your wallet pocket tingle
Metro Area Networks are going to be major telecom profit centers for years to come.If you are a networking professional--an investor or a manager--you must absorb this cutting edge insight into MANs today--and tomorrow.
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If you work in the telecommunications industry, you'll want to read this book. Even if you don't, this book could help you understand some the the leading trends, technologies and companies that could help you develop aprofitable investment strategy in this hot constantly changingindustry.