Rating: 
Summary: What can I say, great book!
Review: A great general discussion that boils the RFC down to something readable. If this is your first journey into BGP then this book does an excellent job of giving a broad overview of the protocol without burying the reader in the details.The first 30 (or 116) pages gives IMHO redundant background on IP addressing, CIDR, Distance Vector protocols, and other information I believe anyone learning BGP should already know. The book gives an excellent treament on the different message types and what they look like, but I would have preferred more details on how IBGP and EBGP differ i.e. resetting MEDs or local-pref, appending local AS, modifying NEXT_HOP attribute, etc. The route selection process (one of my personal favorite parts of BGP) only deals with a subset (6) of the 10 or 11 options Cisco or Juniper will use. There is no mention of comparing Cisco's weight, prefix origin, MEDs between AS, cluster-list, or comparing IGP metric. To be fair though, weights are vendor specific and some of these options may have been introduced after the 1999 publication date. My biggest frustration with the book is that being vendor agnsotic there are no details as to configuration or how one would actually implelement any of the information given. There is also no discussion on troubleshooting BGP, what typical configurations would look like, best practices in filtering or installation. For those who already have an understanding of BGP or who have used the protocol in the field, I would recommend the Complete Reference Juniper Network Routers chapter 12 on Interdomain routing Theory or as a fall-back the much more dry and difficult to get through, Internet Routing Architectures by Halabi. This book is best for the BGP beginner or someone who needs a refresher on what BGP is trying to accomplish and is willing to read other books on how to configure their actual routers.
Rating: 
Summary: Great primer for BGP but to general for practical use
Review: A great general discussion that boils the RFC down to something readable. If this is your first journey into BGP then this book does an excellent job of giving a broad overview of the protocol without burying the reader in the details. The first 30 (or 116) pages gives IMHO redundant background on IP addressing, CIDR, Distance Vector protocols, and other information I believe anyone learning BGP should already know. The book gives an excellent treament on the different message types and what they look like, but I would have preferred more details on how IBGP and EBGP differ i.e. resetting MEDs or local-pref, appending local AS, modifying NEXT_HOP attribute, etc. The route selection process (one of my personal favorite parts of BGP) only deals with a subset (6) of the 10 or 11 options Cisco or Juniper will use. There is no mention of comparing Cisco's weight, prefix origin, MEDs between AS, cluster-list, or comparing IGP metric. To be fair though, weights are vendor specific and some of these options may have been introduced after the 1999 publication date. My biggest frustration with the book is that being vendor agnsotic there are no details as to configuration or how one would actually implelement any of the information given. There is also no discussion on troubleshooting BGP, what typical configurations would look like, best practices in filtering or installation. For those who already have an understanding of BGP or who have used the protocol in the field, I would recommend the Complete Reference Juniper Network Routers chapter 12 on Interdomain routing Theory or as a fall-back the much more dry and difficult to get through, Internet Routing Architectures by Halabi. This book is best for the BGP beginner or someone who needs a refresher on what BGP is trying to accomplish and is willing to read other books on how to configure their actual routers.
Rating: 
Summary: Concise Intro to BGP4
Review: As the title suggests, this book is about BGP4, period. Don't expect a big discussion about anything else. There is an obligatory intro to internet routing and TCP/IP, but that's not the focus of the book. What it is is a great first book on BGP for anyone looking to use multiple ISPs for corporate internet access, or looking to implement BGP4 on larger corporate intranets. The description of the BGP4 routing protocol is extremely detailed and would probably serve as an excellent reference guide. There are enough examples to give you a pretty good idea of how BGP is used, but if you're looking to create your own autonomous system(s), you'll need more information. Check out Bassam Halabi's book - Internet Routing Architectures and talk to your ISPs routing experts. btw: Halabi's book focuses on Cisco's implementation of BGP4 and includes lots of example configs, but that's fine since the internet is dominated by Cisco anyway. I found this book to be excellent and recommend it to anyone who is interested in implementing BGP4 in their network, or to anyone who just wants to expand their knowledge base. The book is short but that's a positive attribute in this case. Kudos to Mr. Stewart.
Rating:
Summary: Just what the doctor ordered...
Review: BGP4 does an excellent job of immersing the reader in BGP in a reasonably short time. It will be "just what the doctor ordered" for those system administrators that are now starting to use BGP by don't want to sift through all of the RFCs.
Rating: 
Summary: 1st book in a new series
Review: BGP4 is the first book in a new series from Addison Wesley - the Addison Wesley Networking Basics Series. This book is a short, step-by-step guide to working with the protocol BGP4 (Border Gateway Protocol version 4). Reviewers of this manuscript raved about the writing style and the conciseness of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Short and intelligent
Review: During a long stretch where I wasn't purchasing books, I looked through this and immediately purchased it. Of course it isn't a terribly detailed book, though it is still more detailed than any stuffed tome other than the "classics." It was written efficiently and rigorously enough. It's a good rule of thumb that the better the cover, the worse the book is. Looking at this and O'Reilly books, this isn't true when it comes to computer books. I glanced through another book in this Addison-Wesley series, it was very basic, but perhaps there will be more interesting ones coming down the pipe.
Rating:
Summary: Concise and descriptive - perfect primer on BGP4
Review: Finally, a series of books that provides an effective primer on networking technologies for those who need to know how it all works, but don't want to build it. This book provides sufficient details on how BGP4 works and some key design issues without going into the details on how to program a Cisco router!!!
Rating:
Summary: What can I say, great book!
Review: Great BGP book, sure wish it was longer.
Rating:
Summary: A thick stew of serious technical content.
Review: I have this love-hate relationship with writers of technical books and their publishers. On the shelves, my eyes are drawn to the 500+ page tomes, but when I take a peek I am more often disappointed than elated with watered down, stretched out pap. Mr. Stewart breaks out from the pack with a seriously dense work that is nonetheless eminently readable. Don't be fooled by the tiny size of this book- it is huge. It covers its subject thoroughly and concisely. You can use it as a reference or a tutorial. It reads well and it works. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: The best source for BGP4 info
Review: I was recommended to read this book at a Global Knowledge class on BGP4. This book really picks up where the class itself left off (and this is the only class given on BGP4, by a total of 6 people qualified - cisco doesn't have such a class). The advanced BGP4 section is perfect, and unlike Bassam Halabi's book (which is also required reading), it is consice, minimalist, and cuts right to the heart of the matter. The sections on route reflection were required to understand our global network, and were clearly explained in this book. Best of all, it fits right in your pocket! A must have.
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