
Computer Networks: A Systems Approach
Larry Peterson, Princeton University
Bruce Davie, VMWare
Copyright Year: 2019
Publisher: Larry Peterson and Bruce Davie
Language: English
Conditions of Use
Attribution
CC BY
Reviews
This book presents majority of the networking critical areas and explains latest hot topics in the industry. More pictures, charts and tables can make it more attractive for students. read more
This book presents majority of the networking critical areas and explains latest hot topics in the industry. More pictures, charts and tables can make it more attractive for students.
This book provides an unbiased approach with all possible ways and does not specifically attached to any industry networking equipment provider other than in few real life examples.
The latest version of the book contains 5G and SDN topics as well as some details of cloud networking. Due to changing technologies the future updates will be required and authors agility is appreciable so far.
This book presents the material with clarity, details and relevant real examples as possible
Authors tried their best to be focused and deliver required information with good sequence and consistency.
Content of this book is very well organized in chapters.
Authors did excellent work by putting every critical area and topic in separate chapters making the flow transition smooth.
The book's interface is well written without navigation, distortion of images / charts, or other display failures. Visual display works well.
Could not find any grammatical errors during review of the book text.
No negative impact or relation on any culture or community.
I like this book’s title and material included. This book can be an excellent reference & textbook for network related courses. I will provide with any further comments and updates necessary when I use it in class.
This book will be used to identify problems in the information technology industry. Every chapter presents a problem to be analyzed by students which is suitable for developing the critical thinking skills of students. read more
This book will be used to identify problems in the information technology industry. Every chapter presents a problem to be analyzed by students which is suitable for developing the critical thinking skills of students.
This book provides an unbiased presentation of relevant concepts and issues with the information technology industry.
This book has a copyright of 2019; based on the topics presented, the content is relevant to students considering or pursuing a career in information technology.
This book presents the material with clarity; any areas that may be unclear can be researched and expounded upon during class discussions.
This book presents consistent and relevant terminology in each chapter.
This book presents the material in page formats that are not overwhelming to the reader.
This book 's structure presents a well organized, logical, and clear flow of information regarding each topic.
The book's interface works well. I did not find any issues with navigating from page to page, or chapter to chapter.
This book did not present any grammatical errors that I identified while reading it.
The book did not present any culturally insensitive or offensive material.
I am going to use this book for my IT problem-solving course during the Fall 2020 semester; I am hoping to identify feedback from students to be added to this review in the future.
Almost all important areas in computer networks are covered in this book. read more
Almost all important areas in computer networks are covered in this book.
I have not checked every word and every piece of information from this book. But from what I had looked at, this book appears to be accurate and unbiased.
This book is about computer networks, of course. However, like all tech books, they will have to update with new content, e.g. SDN, 5G, ...
This depends on who will read the book. For me, I have no difficulty reading this book.
Did not see a major problem.
This book is a bit "heavy" for some students in computer science to follow in a single semester. It is a challenge for the instructors to pick up specific contents that will be suitable for a typical one-semester course.
I am not sure that putting the "applications" as the last chapter is a good approach. Additionally, some terms are addressed earlier in the book, but the concept is later introduced. For example, the term "Content Distribution Networks" is mentioned in previous chapters but it is only formally introduced in chapter 9.
The content of this book is not intended to distract or confuse the reader.
Did not observe any obvious grammatical error.
Like most tech books, this book is culturally neutral.
Lack of homework questions, lab questions, and programming assignments. This book will be better served as a reference book, not a textbook.
The bool appears to be comprehensive, but a little wordy. Perhaps say the same thing without repetition and stay focused on the subject. read more
The bool appears to be comprehensive, but a little wordy. Perhaps say the same thing without repetition and stay focused on the subject.
I did not find any errors
This is fairly fundamental networking, however it is a topic that changes rapidly, which is not the fault of the author
I understood it fairly easily, but this could be difficult depending on the audience and their ability and familiarity with the subject.
Nicely laid out.
The book is logically divided into subjects that could be used individually.
I like how they started with the application layer of the OSI model that is the easiest to understand. I would stick with the OSI format throughout the course.
The interface is fairly straightforward. I personally like ebooks with links to appropriate videos, but then it would not be a "textbook".
I did not find any errors, however I am not an English instructor.
This is not a cultural subject.
I would consider using part of this book in my class
This book does an excellent job of covering all of the major topic areas in computer networking. It provides a good overview of networking and then dives into the details of the most important sections of the network stack. read more
This book does an excellent job of covering all of the major topic areas in computer networking. It provides a good overview of networking and then dives into the details of the most important sections of the network stack.
I found no inaccuracies of note in the content of the text.
This book covers historical networking topics well. It also highlights the primary tools used in modern networked mobile and web applications (HTTPS, REST, etc) and explains the forces that have caused much of the industry to settle on these tools. This book should remain relevant for years, especially if it continues to be regularly updated.
There's a lot of jargon in computer networking, but this book does a good job of recognizing this and carefully introducing new terms. It could perhaps benefit from an index of important terms and acronyms.
I found the book to be consistent throughout. I think that it could benefit from using a structure and set of chapter names the connect more tightly to established layers of the one of the common network stack models, or simply being more upfront in defining its own view into the network stack to provide readers more direction on where the text is headed and what content is found in each chapter.
The text is well structured to be divided into course topics.
The book begins with a high-level overview of networked application and then explores the network stack from the bottom up. This is the approach that several other texts use, and I find it to be a clear way to teach the content.
I had no problems viewing or navigating the text or figures.
The text appears to be well edited and largely free of grammatical errors.
I did not note any content in the text that I found to be inappropriate or offensive nor any content that I would expect is probable to offend others.
Overall, this is a helpful text that provides a good overview of the most important concepts in computer networking and could be easily applied for teaching and learning this topic.
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1: Foundation
- Chapter 2: Direct Connections
- Chapter 3: Internetworking
- Chapter 4: Advanced Internetworking
- Chapter 5: End-to-End Protocols
- Chapter 6: Congestion Control
- Chapter 7: End-to-End Data
- Chapter 8: Network Security
- Chapter 9: Applications
Ancillary Material
About the Book
Suppose you want to build a computer network, one that has the potential to grow to global proportions and to support applications as diverse as teleconferencing, video on demand, electronic commerce, distributed computing, and digital libraries. What available technologies would serve as the underlying building blocks, and what kind of software architecture would you design to integrate these building blocks into an effective communication service? Answering this question is the overriding goal of this book—to describe the available building materials and then to show how they can be used to construct a network from the ground up.
About the Contributors
Authors
Larry Peterson is CTO at the Open Networking Foundation and the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science (Emeritus) at Princeton University
Bruce Davie is VP & CTO at VMWare for Asia Pacific and Japan