Optical Networking Crash Course

Rating:
Summary: Optical networking, the big picture. Excellent!
Review: Do your network clients need more bandwidth? Do your usage projections say that you need to get off of the copper backbone and start thinking of laying glass? Need to get a handle on optical networking, it's technology, the marketplace and the vendors?

Too much info, too little time? Are you an engineering student wondering if you should take that class on fiber optics and want to read a good primer? Or maybe you are a CTO, CIO, network manager, IT manager, network consultant, or anyone that has a need to know about optical networking and need to come up to speed quickly? Then, this is the optical networking book for you.

Years ago, the first book about fiber I picked up was a scholarly tome filled with logarithmic diagrams, hard to read engineering drawings shrunk to book format and so many formulae and calculus equations I had to put it back into the stack for a time when I couldn't sleep. I wasn't going to engineer the network, I just needed a general idea of what I was working with, we had specialists that actually dealt with the details. This is the book I needed then and today I am better in tune with what's going on in the networking industry.

The book is nicely partitioned into four sections: 1) The Optical Networking Marketplace, 2) From Copper To Glass, 3) Corollary Technologies and 4) Solutions and Applications. It covers some historical details that gives you a feel for why and how the networking marketplace has changed just within the past ten years. The highly technical detail is clearly and simply explained with easy to understand (and read) drawings and diagrams. You are not overloaded with acronyms, just what you need to know and if you have any doubt, there's a list of acronyms, a bibliography, a glossary and an index in the back.

A really nice touch that I appreciate about this book is the use of a few real life photos, so we don't forget that the technology doesn't all take place on a written page. There's one photo of men hauling a floated fiber cable from an offshore cabling ship onto land for termination. Another is a "drawing tower" where fiber is stretched/drawn.

You might say, this is a scholarly text cleverly hidden inside a humorous, easy to read book. In addition, besides the Internet itself, this book is a very current assessment of the market and vendors in the fiber, optical component and services areas of this critical industry.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Summary and Examination of Optical Networks
Review: I read the other reviews, and they don't tell the right story. Shepard's Optical book, like his others, keeps things simple but educates the reader at the same time. It's a Crash Course, but it gives a great explanation of the basics of routing, switching, and other networking concepts. The author also ties them in to the optical space very neatly.

Worth the money !

Rating:
Summary: A Good Summary and Examination of Optical Networks
Review: I read the other reviews, and they don't tell the right story. Shepard's Optical book, like his others, keeps things simple but educates the reader at the same time. It's a Crash Course, but it gives a great explanation of the basics of routing, switching, and other networking concepts. The author also ties them in to the optical space very neatly.

Worth the money !

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth [price]
Review: I would title this "Optical Networking for Crash Test Dummies." It is positioned as a work for people with a technology background who need to ramp up on Optical Networking, but half the book is filled with ABSOLUTELY ELEMENTARY principles of networks. Much of the information is covered in more useful texts on network basics. The very meager portion of the book which actually discusses optical networks is too high level for just about anyone interested in this topic....

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth [price]
Review: I would title this "Optical Networking for Crash Test Dummies." It is positioned as a work for people with a technology background who need to ramp up on Optical Networking, but half the book is filled with ABSOLUTELY ELEMENTARY principles of networks. Much of the information is covered in more useful texts on network basics. The very meager portion of the book which actually discusses optical networks is too high level for just about anyone interested in this topic....

Rating:
Summary: Good overview of the optical comms industry and marketplace
Review: In summary, this book is a brief, handy guide for those who need to know about the optical comms industry in a hurry. It can be divided into 4 sections of approximately equal length: market forces and evolution of the industry, overview of the technology, market players and applications, and the reference section (including the index). I was impressed by the extensive coverage in the third section, and the author's ability to impart a concise, intuitive understanding of technical concepts (to a non-technical audience) in the second is credible. The reference section, though not exhaustive, is a helpful starting point for those who wish to delve deeper. It is too bad that charts were not included in the third section as these would have been helpful for comparison of the various companies listed.
A pet peeve of mine is the assumption, cited in the first few pages, of the driving force of the frenetic thirst for bandwidth; while an ever-increasing demand is undisputed, whether this is at an exponential rate is still in contention, despite this point being bandied about frequently by so-called technology advocates.
Those who found the author's last book on convergence trends in the comms sector helpful will not want to miss this. In my opinion, this one is an improvement in many aspects.

Rating:
Summary: useless
Review: This book is totally useless. The networking part is almost impossible to follow if you are new to optical networking. The optical components sections are at high school level and are full of incorrect statements and show that the author has a very superficial understanding of the physics.

Rating:
Summary: Optical Networking Crash Course
Review: This is an excellent book for anyone interested in any aspect of optical networking and communication. More than just a "crash course", this book provides useful and current information on the topic.

There are sections on the technology (a great primer or review), the business, and companies in the optical space. The information is easy to comprehend, but goes far beyond just the basics.

I would recommend this book highly to anyone who is or might be involved with optical networking products, technology, companies, or business.

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable
Review: This is the most useful tech book I've bought all year. For some reason publishers almost never publish books like this, but it actually does take apart optical networking and explain how things work for an intelligent non-engineer. The organization makes sense and the writing is clear and literate, and even funny, sometimes. If you've got a doctorate you probably don't need this, but for the rest of us its invaluable.