Protocol Management in Computer Networking

Rating:
Summary: Unfulfilled Promise
Review: Control engineering has many areas of application in networking. Synchronization (various levels), flow control (TCP), etc. I anticipated this book would offer some original insights into control systems methods as they apply to networking. Greatly disappointed. Problems with this book: Lack of quantitative methods (control theory is highly quantitative, no real application of control methods except as block diagrams), no examples, broad generalities. No demonstration that he understands the fundamental factors in the success of the Internet (yet he boldly states he thinks it should be fundamentally changed). The subject was promising, but no useful techniques or methods. Doesn't even demonstrate an understanding of the control systems aspects (networking is a multi-input, multi-output control system problem, but that is not addressed). Regretfully, I strongly recommend not buying this book.

Rating:
Summary: previous reviewer missed the point
Review: The premise of the book is that "management" can be viewed more broadly than an application-layer protocol such as SNMP. The author shows how each layer may be understood in the context of "management" of a resource. I found the viewpoint to be very illustrative. Suddenly, many things that look different are really much the same. From my perspective, this insight does not require excessive quantitative analysis.