Product Description

Appropriate for courses titled Computer Networking or Introduction to Networking at both the undergraduate and graduate level in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, CIS, MIS, and Business Departments. In this highly anticipated revision, Tanenbaum takes a structured approach to explaining how networks work from the inside out. He starts with an explanation of the physical layer of networking, computer hardware and transmission systems; then works his way up to network applications. Tanenbaum's in-depth application coverage includes email; the domain name system; the World Wide Web (both client- and server-side); and multimedia (including voice over IP, Internet radio video on demand, video conferencing, and streaming media. Each chapter follows a consistent approach: Tanenbaum presents key principles, then illustrates them utilizing real-world example networks that run through the entire book-the Internet, and wireless networks, including Wireless LANs, broadband wireless and Bluetooth. This new Fourth Edition contains a new chapter devoted exclusively to network security.The textbook is supplemented by a Solutions Manual, as well as a Website containing PowerPoint slides, art in various forms, and other tools for instruction, including a protocol simulator whereby students can develop and test their own network protocols.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32936 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 912 pages

Amazon.com Review
This is the long-awaited 3rd Edition of Tanenbaum's classic book on computer networking. The finest network engineer I know (who was stolen from my previous employer by developers of IPv6) swears by this book, and it is arguably the best single resource for gaining a good technical understanding of modern networking in the mid 1990s. Very Highly Recommended.

Review
Read the entire review of this book.

Computer Networks won't save one minute over the next year. It has no step-by-step procedures, no problem solving sections, and no butt-saving tricks. The only purpose it can serve at a downed site is as a shield against thrown objects from frustrated users. Normally, theoretical books like this one receive a quick skim and are promptly sent to my for-looks-only tome tomb. However, this isn't a normal theoretical book. It's fascinating. In fact, I read it not once but three times. Tanenbaum fills over 700 pages with everything I didn't know, or better still, only thought I knew about networks. --Don Bryson, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal

From the Publisher
This classic best-seller has been completely revised and updated to reflect networking and internetworking technologies that will be most critical for years to come.

Award-winning educator and researcher Andrew S. Tanenbaum explains how computer networks work inside--from the hardware technology up to and including the most popular Internet application protocols. Throughout the book are running examples of ATM and the Internet.

Tanenbaum's extensive coverage of the Internet, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and wireless networking makes Computer Networks the first book to cover all three of these essential technologies, in addition to explaining the fundamental principles behind all computer networking. Tanenbaum clearly presents:

• Internet applications such as the World Wide Web, Java, email, Usenet, multimedia, the Mbone, and the Domain Name System
• Network security, including secret- and public- key algorithms, authentication protocols, and digital signatures.
• TCP/IP and the latest internetworking technologies such as Mobile IP and IPv6 which are built atop the Internet's protocols
• ATM: How it works in wide area (B-ISDN) and LAN environments
• Local area networks, including IEEE, 802, FDDI, HIPPI, and Fibre Channel
• The major wireless and mobile technologies, including such as AMPS, GSM, CDMA, and CDPD
• Detailed discussions of the principles, modeling, and performance of protocols in various layers
• Discussions of the underlying hardware technologies, from fiber optics to wireless communication

With 250 exercises, a separate solutions manual, protocol simulation software files written in C and figure files available for downloading, the book is perfect for students and networking professionals.

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Customer Reviews

Out of Date, But Still a Good Start
I've been teaching Intro to Netwking for 7 years (half electrical engineering and half computer science students). I'm also a practicing network engineer in satellite (and ground) communications (15 years experience). Until this year (2001) I used Tanenbaum to teach my graduate level course, but this year I think I may have to abandon him. On the plus side the book is clearly written, well illustrated, combines both theory and practice, and is very well organized. I strongly endorse the layered approach both for teaching and for practice. On the negative side is Tanenbaum's relatively-poorly written physical layer. He also does not have a consistent approach to networking performance.

But the biggest problem now is that since 1996, when this book was last updated, there has been a major shift due to the convergence of the telecommunications and computer networking (Voice over IP). Also the development of fiber optics has become a major factor. Finally, the convergence of wireless with the Internet is rapidly taking shape.

These changes are touched on by parts of this book, but these changes are more than mere additions. They affect the fundamental engineering approaches used by network engineers. For example, statistical traffic models now cannot be ignored, availability (always a major topic in telecomm) must now be covered, the full implications of mixed traffic types must now be explored, multiplexing needs greater attention, scheduling is now essential, etc. Although it is NOT obvious that commercial voice will merge with the Internet, it is obvious that the future is VoIP (lots of implementation approaches).

Tanenbaum still has a lot to offer. No other textbook is as well organized. This is the first duty of an author: to organize the topic. For example, I agree with Tanenbaum's putting ATM at the network layer even though in practice it is treated as a data link protocol (ATM obviously has a limited future).

My recommendation to someone considering this textbook is that there is no "killer-textbook" in this area. If Tanenbaum updated this book, he could (in my est) ascend to the position. For now this should be supplemented with more up-to-date textbooks. Perhaps I'll consign my students to two textbooks this year (torturous), but for sure they need supplemental material. I refuse to allow my students to enter the networking world unprepared . The networking world is changing!

Clear and Thorough. Engineer's point of view.
Computer Networks are a wide and fastly growing subject. Finding a textbook that covers all of the topics in a detailed way is simply impossible. Perhaps for this reason good textbook authors have, in a probably implicit way, established two possible approaches: the Engineers' and the (mostly Software) Developers'. Once again Tanenbaum has done a great job with this book (and its updated-more-than-revised 4th edition), which takes the former approach.

The book presents general issues and impacts (on technology as well on the society) of Computer Networks in the first chapter, and then move in a detailed exposition of the lower layers of a general network architecture (similar to the OSI one). The great value of the books stems from the clarity and thoroughness of the exposition. Indeed, it presents all of the most known technologies and algorithms (both today's and historical) from physical mediums to algorithms for routing, congestion and flow control and so on. Plenty of details are provided at the level of mathematical performance analysis for some algorithms like those presented in the Medium Access Sublayer chapter (e.g. ALOHA and CSMAs).

The "tone" of prof. Tanenbaum is an added values as well. He rarely becomes boring and sometimes results hilarious in his comments of famous anecdotes that led to the born of this technology or that algorithm (have you ever heard how automatic phone calls switching was born ?). I never underestimate the value of an easy exposition, as sometimes studying is already hard enough to cope also with a overwhelmingly boring book.

Enough for the lower layers/protocols so far. About the upper ones the book actually does not spend too much emphasis on network applications nor on the high level tools for building network applications (e.g. there are a very few pages for sockets, but no more). Indeed, this area is more properly in the competence of the second kind of books (Developer's) as noted at the beginning of the review. However, there's one (unsurprising but happy) exception: as already done in his "Modern Operating Systems, 2e", Tanenbaum has put a detailed and rigorous treatment of the Security issue (Network Security in this case).

About editions, the third was already a very good book. Reasons for considering the fourth edition are the inclusion of updated technologies like ADSL, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, JavaScript, XHTML or XML, etc. More than this, however, technologies like fiber optic were on the wave of great improvements in 1996 when the third edition was published (and deformation due to day-night thermal excursions were not cited) so that now the treatment is more reliable (in terms of updates, not in technicalities).

All in all, given that imho there's no serious "complete bible" (or the like) book on computer networks, this book is a full five-stars one if the Engineers' perspective is that of interest. If one is more interested in the Developers' perspective (take again the sockets example), then a good choice would be Douglas Comer's "Computer Networks". For TCP/IP fans, my best choices would be the more focused Comer's "Internetworking with TCP/IP, vol. I" (1/3 Engineer's, 2/3 Developers') or Stevens' "TCP/IP Illustrated. vol I" (1/5 Engineer's, 4/5 Developers').

The classical introduction to networking.
When I just started working as a programmer, I came across the 2nd edition international student reprint of this book, in red softcover, at a students' bookshop, and bought it. I treasure that copy in my library to this day - it gave me a solid background in computer networking that served me well in the past and is an asset that will serve me in the future.

Previous reviews have mentioned Tanenbaum's excellent and concise writing style and the breadth of the material covered, which are two of the good qualities that made this book a classic.

What wasnt mentioned and I consider important is :

- The bottom up explanation of networking, starting with the physical layer, up through the OSI layers (link layer, network layer, transport layer) to the application layer. This structure makes it very clear how networks work, how they are designed, and why.

- The well made balance between broad coverage of topics and the depth of coverage of each topic. After reading this book it's easy to start studying in depth any subtopic covered in this book (e.g. TCP/IP through Comers' books) as the reader knows how the subtopic fits in the big picture and knows enough to make a smooth start.

Some previous reviewers asked about solutions to problem, so I'll note that this book does have booklet with problem solutions, which is apparently made available only to academical staff [ and people mistaken to be such :-) ].

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any type of network related job, students who study networking, and anyone who wants to study computer networking.