Optical Networks: A Practical Perspective

Rating:
Summary: AN INVALUABLE BOOK ON OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS.
Review: An excellent and comprehensive book on Optical Networks for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Electrical and Computer Science/Engineering.The book consists of two parts. The first part consisting of six chapters, dwells upon technological developments in optical components and transmission systems. The first chapter throws light on the state-of-the-art optical communication technology. The second chapter describes the features of optical fiber and its superiority over other communication media such as copper wire. The third chapter is an overview of the optical components viz., transmitters, receivers, switches, amplifiers etc., while the fourth chapter explains the process of Modulation and Demodulation in converting electrical signals to optical signals and vice-versa. The fifth chapter deals with the design of the physical layer. The concepts explained in all these chapters are clear and lucid. This part is particularly useful for students of Electrical Engineering.

The second part of this book deals with optical network architecture and algorithms. The sixth chapter emphasizes the necessity of optical fiber and includes the architecture of SONET/SDH. The seventh chapter illustrates the Broadcast and Select Wavelength Division Multiplexing Networks widely used in LANs and WANs, while the next chapter covers the architecture and algorithms employed in Wavelength Routed Networks for WANs. Chapter nine introduces the notion of Virtual topology design which is useful in integrating IP and ATM networks over the Optical layer. Control and management, that is, configuration, equipment, fault, failure, safety, management form the crux of the tenth chapter. Chapter eleven describes the on going research activities of various testbeds on Wavelength Routed Networks. Chapter twelve provides optical network solutions for Fiber-to-the-home access network applications. The thirteenth chapter emphasizes the issues faced by the network operators in upgrading the existing networks. The last chapter explores Packet Switched Optical Networks. This portion of the book is useful for students of Computer Science and Engineering.

The authors have covered a wide range of topics, from physics of the optical fiber to the networking aspects. The book is very simple to read, easy to absorb, and exceptionally exciting in the world of optical networks. The authors have taken lot of care to design the book for an academic curriculum without sacrificing the depth of the topics and it is a very useful book for research students.

The book is an admirable piece of work, eminently scientific in concept, and elegant in style. It is an exceedingly stimulating book with theoretical rigor and practical in approach which is too often lacking in works on optical communication. The results are profound and enlightening. There is a smooth flow of the concepts from the beginning to the end. The exercises in the chapter enables the student to check his understanding of the concepts. A number of useful references for further reading are included at the end of the chapters. It is indeed a competent work signaling a definitive contribution to optical communication. No future student of the fortunes of optical communications can afford to overlook it. This book deserves to be read and reread by each and every student of optical communications.

Venugopal K. R. Department of Computer Science and Engineering. University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering. K. R. Circle. Bangalore - 560 001.

Rating:
Summary: AN INVALUABLE BOOK ON OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS.
Review: An excellent and comprehensive book on Optical Networks for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Electrical and Computer Science/Engineering.The book consists of two parts. The first part consisting of six chapters, dwells upon technological developments in optical components and transmission systems. The first chapter throws light on the state-of-the-art optical communication technology. The second chapter describes the features of optical fiber and its superiority over other communication media such as copper wire. The third chapter is an overview of the optical components viz., transmitters, receivers, switches, amplifiers etc., while the fourth chapter explains the process of Modulation and Demodulation in converting electrical signals to optical signals and vice-versa. The fifth chapter deals with the design of the physical layer. The concepts explained in all these chapters are clear and lucid. This part is particularly useful for students of Electrical Engineering.

The second part of this book deals with optical network architecture and algorithms. The sixth chapter emphasizes the necessity of optical fiber and includes the architecture of SONET/SDH. The seventh chapter illustrates the Broadcast and Select Wavelength Division Multiplexing Networks widely used in LANs and WANs, while the next chapter covers the architecture and algorithms employed in Wavelength Routed Networks for WANs. Chapter nine introduces the notion of Virtual topology design which is useful in integrating IP and ATM networks over the Optical layer. Control and management, that is, configuration, equipment, fault, failure, safety, management form the crux of the tenth chapter. Chapter eleven describes the on going research activities of various testbeds on Wavelength Routed Networks. Chapter twelve provides optical network solutions for Fiber-to-the-home access network applications. The thirteenth chapter emphasizes the issues faced by the network operators in upgrading the existing networks. The last chapter explores Packet Switched Optical Networks. This portion of the book is useful for students of Computer Science and Engineering.

The authors have covered a wide range of topics, from physics of the optical fiber to the networking aspects. The book is very simple to read, easy to absorb, and exceptionally exciting in the world of optical networks. The authors have taken lot of care to design the book for an academic curriculum without sacrificing the depth of the topics and it is a very useful book for research students.

The book is an admirable piece of work, eminently scientific in concept, and elegant in style. It is an exceedingly stimulating book with theoretical rigor and practical in approach which is too often lacking in works on optical communication. The results are profound and enlightening. There is a smooth flow of the concepts from the beginning to the end. The exercises in the chapter enables the student to check his understanding of the concepts. A number of useful references for further reading are included at the end of the chapters. It is indeed a competent work signaling a definitive contribution to optical communication. No future student of the fortunes of optical communications can afford to overlook it. This book deserves to be read and reread by each and every student of optical communications.

Venugopal K. R. Department of Computer Science and Engineering. University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering. K. R. Circle. Bangalore - 560 001.

Rating:
Summary: Best book on Optical Networks
Review: I found the book highly valuable and a must for all students and Telecom/Networkengineers. Although theortical it gives considerable insight into technology. Balaji Sundararajan, Cisco Systems, Petaluma, California. (Previously with Singapore Network Services, Singapore.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent "Big Picture" book for students in optics
Review: I got this book while working on my masters in electro-optics, and found that it completed the big picture of optical communications and how network components fit together which was lacking in my detailed graduate work. I especially recommend it to those with a background other than EE, as it fills in a lot of gaps that EE folks assume that others know.

It starts off pretty light and qualitative, then begins incorporating some equations and formulas to accompany the qualitative descriptions. It does not waist time deriving anything, nor will you find pages of just mathematical equations. It has references and problems at the end of each chapter for the more technical reader.

For non-technical readers, this book is not light reading, but if you are patient enough to breeze over certain sections of math, you will find plenty of useful qualitative descriptions that do not depend on a full understanding of the math. There are even large sections of the book with no math at all.

In short, this book offers an excellent bridge between quantitative and qualitative descriptions of optical communications and optical networks.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and highly recommended reading
Review: If you are interested in learning about optical networking, this book is very accessible and can serve as an excellent guide to this exciting field. Although it is not my first book about optical networks, I learnt much more from the reading since the book is amazingly comprehensive (it covers all important aspects of optical networks: physical components, signal modulation, transmission system engineering, control and management, topology designs, specific examples of testbeds, and related future technologies). A big thumb up!!!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and highly recommended reading
Review: If you are interested in learning about optical networking, this book is very accessible and can serve as an excellent guide to this exciting field. Although it is not my first book about optical networks, I learnt much more from the reading since the book is amazingly comprehensive (it covers all important aspects of optical networks: physical components, signal modulation, transmission system engineering, control and management, topology designs, specific examples of testbeds, and related future technologies). A big thumb up!!!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent in-depth analysis and conceptual understanding
Review: This book has an ideal combination of in-depth analysis and conceptual understanding of optical components, optical transmission system and optical networking. The first half of the book is devoted in explaining optical fibre transmission properties, working of optical modules, and optical transmission system engineering. The second half of the book explains the evolution of optical networking starting from point to point optical transport to current trends in optical networking i.e, wavelength routed optical networks. The various networking strategies for realizing access optical networks and wavelength routing optical networks are covered extensively. A whole chapter is devoted to control and management functions needed in these networks. There is also an excellent compendium of the various optical networking testbeds realized in industries and research labs.

This book is a must possesion for anyone involved in technical aspects of the optical transport/ networking.

Rating:
Summary: Good for theoreticians
Review: This is a good book for those are interested in the details of optical physics, the thoerms and the equations that govern that science.

For folks who are from computer networking background looking to take on the new world of optical communications from a network application & design perspective, this book may not be the right one.

I am a network designer from one of the big-3, hoping to break into this field, and I found that this was not the right book for me. It does not touch the details of IP over glass or ATM over glass.

For those of us who intend to do a course in Fiber Optics, or get into the hardware design of optical equipment this should be useful.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely Balanced Introduction
Review: This is surely the best book on fiber optics networks. It's that rarity - an accessible academic book which doesn't ignore the practical side of things either. Therefore it is useful both as a textbook as well as a refresher for professionals.

We studied the draft of this book in a course in the Indian Institute of Science in 1997 conducted by Professor K.N.Sivarajan, one of authors and a world-wide authority on the subject. It was an enjoyable course,and we felt that we were truly studying the latest technology - in fact, even some of the future technology, since the book included architectures that hadn't been built yet(ie conceptual architectures)!

Later on, as a professional systems engineer i worked in a team writing firmware for a SONET based product,and this book was much admired by my colleagues as well.

This book has all the basic scientific and engineering concepts and considerations involved in understanding and designing fiber optic networks. The treatment is mathematical and the writing is lucid.

Towards the later part, there are detailed case studies that will be truly helpful for the professionals designing their own networks.

Since it was writen almost 4 years ago, it cannot have all the latest information is this rapidly expanding field - but for a sound, balanced introduction to the fundamentals, this is your book.