Multiprotocol Network Design and Troubleshooting

We run a mixed environment of NT and NetWare servers. We also have a Unix firewall. This book is an excellent resource for staying on top of all of these systems. The tuning tips are great as I was able to create a noticeable improvement in performance along our backbone. Much cheaper than buying new hardware.

One of the best technically oriented books I've read. Very conversational in style of writing. Chris Brenton is adept at explaining technical conepts. I also liked the mix of theoritical and practical material.

Hats off to Chris Brenton! I'm a Dir of MIS, I wasn't always, one of the hardest things for me to do is communicate, to my non-technical peers, why we need to spend money on our net gear. This book is a great resource for helping me remember and explain things at almost any level. This book reads like a conversation with the author not the standard stereo instruction I see all to often these days. I find myself going back and reading it over and over. It's become required reading for my staff.Regards Jerry Buote Dir. MIS Adams ,Harkness & Hill Inc. Boston,MA

As the network administrator for some large and small companies around Boston, Chris Brenton noticed that networking books almost always focused on only one kind of network. Brenton's experience was that most companies invariably needed to mix Novell Netware networks with, for example, Windows NT, perhaps also supporting some Macintoshs that speak AppleTalk, and, with the increasing importance of the Internet, every administrator also needed to understand TCP/IP. Brenton's book is about how to be calm and organized and master all of it. He starts from the beginning with elementary network concepts and facts: what's actually on the transmission line, the kinds of line and airwave media, and basic network topologies. He describes each of the different kinds of networking hardware, from punch-down panels and PC Cards through hubs and switches (including those that handle VLANs). A chapter that begins with the Open Systems Interconnection OSI) reference model discusses specific network protocols including IP, the various TCP/IP application protocols, Novell's Domain Name Service (DNS), IPX, NetBIOS, and AppleTalk, and relates them all to OSI. After discussing these protocols together in a single chapter, the author provides a chapter on each major network operating system - Novell's IntranetWare, the Windows NT server, and UNIX systems - and adds a chapter about Lotus Notes, a network application likely to be superimposed on any of them. Having discussed servers, Brenton then describes how to configure the client programs at workstations and how to consolidate protocols. The final chapters describe the troubleshooting tools available to an administrator in general and within each operating system and provide approaches to diagnosing real-world problems. Unlike a number of networking books we've seen, this book is a pleasure to read. Brenton's conversational style set into a well-organized framework lets you read, meander, or do a quick look-up. The book design and the book's many illustrations ! aim at clarity. At whatis.com, we haven't had this book long, but we find ourselves making frequent use of it. This book is not just for network administrators. We recommend it without qualification to anyone who wants to know more about how networks work.