Inside Cisco IOS

This book centers around buffer allocations and buffering problems. It will give you a better understanding of when different buffers are used. I think the title should have been "Cisco IOS Buffering, What you need to know".You definitely have to read between the lines to fill in what all is happening to the data as it flows through the router in different ways. I feel that it is rather limited in it's descriptions of the IOS SW Architecture so don't expect to come away with the full details on how IOS does its job.This is not a book for beginners.

I bought this book and read it cover to cover in about two weeks (which for me is pretty good). It's definitely not for beginners, in fact it really benefits people who are running BFRs like 7200 and bigger. Good detail about 7500 and 12000 architectures. It also gave me a lot of little bits of knowledge that made sense but I hadn't thought about before. Example - if you have a 7206 stacked with fast ethernet cards but your only using half of them, IOS is allocating buffer space to every interface anyway, so pull those cards.Other topics are queuing methods like weighted RED and a very coherent discussion of process/fast/CEF/distributed switching.Pricey book but I thought it was worth it.

I have just completed reading this book and I must say - it was a brilliant handling of a tricky subject like the "Internals" of an operating system.Must for anyone wanting to know what happens 'inside' that router of yours. I felt the authors could have spent a little more time on the Cisco 12000 GSR section.Though only 200 odd pages - its "packed" with stuff and it would take you a week to run through the book once.The first chapter is a killer - you will take time over it - so dont fret if your spending a lot of time there !!Splendid effort !! When's the follow up expected ???

After a short review of this text, I felt compelled to write a review for the benefit of others. The book provides an excellent overview of cisco IOS and, more specifically, core router architecture. It will remain in my library as a reference for hardware troubleshooting. Coverage of the GSR internals are enough to warrant the purchase of this book.Excellent job Russ, Curtis, and Vijay.

Excellent book for anyone wanting to know exactly how Cisco IOS software (and router hardware) really works. Functionally complete explanation of the different switching methods that IOS employs, as well as an in-depth view of a few hardware architectures. For anyone who ever wanted (or needed) to know how Cisco implements queueing and shared memory, and how CEF/dCEF work their magic. Also includes a large poster-size flow chart in the back of the book illustrating the steps packets take from being received to being routed and sent back out for several different architectures.