Product Description

This book, broken into four major sections — quick review of basics, packet header formats, etc.; traditional protocol processing systems, network processors, and an example network processor — covers concepts, principles, hardware and software architectures that underly the design and implementation of network systems such as switches, bridges, routers, NAT boxes, firewalls, intrusion, detection systems, and load balancers. Topics covered include how to build network systems, the concepts of classification and classification languages, algorithms and data structures, issues in scaling a network processor and an overview of the Intel network processor. For professionals in the field of computer science, or anyone who has studied basic computer networking.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1235885 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Review

"This book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand what goes on inside the plethora of magic boxes that make the Internet work." — Larry Peterson, Princeton University

"A sturdy and clear explanation of the intricacies of designing and using network processors. I expect it to become the standard textbook on the subject." — Craig Partridge, Chair, ACM SIGCOMM

"Finally, a book that helps reunite the disciplines of computer engineering and network engineering." — Michael Hathaway, Venture Partner, Austin Ventures

"I recommend this book for every network system designer's bookshelf." — T. Sridhar, CTO & Vice President, Engineering FutureSoft

"This book is a practical handbook to network processors and NP-based systems development." — Paul Phillips, Co-founder and System Architect, Nauticus Networks

"It is sure to become a network processing classic." — Dale E. Parson, Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Agere Systems

From the Back Cover
This book, broken into four major sections — quick review of basics, packet header formats, etc.; traditional protocol processing systems, network processors, and an example network processor — covers concepts, principles, hardware and software architectures that underly the design and implementation of network systems such as switches, bridges, routers, NAT boxes, firewalls, intrusion, detection systems, and load balancers. Topics covered include how to build network systems, the concepts of classification and classification languages, algorithms and data structures, issues in scaling a network processor and an overview of the Intel network processor. For professionals in the field of computer science, or anyone who has studied basic computer networking.

About the Author

Douglas E. Comer, professor of computer science at Purdue University and Fellow of the ACM, is one of the leading networking authorities. As a member of the Internet Architecture Board, he participated in the formation of the Internet in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Dr. Comer consults with companies on the design and implementation of network systems.

Customer Reviews

Prof. Comer demystifies NPs, for the technical masses
Prof. Douglas Comer of Purdue is one of the best textbook authors in the field of Internet technology (and those who have heard him speak, as I have, know that he is even better in person). His TCP/IP volumes are classics that almost every engineer in the industry has read. The fact that he chose to write a textbook on network processors is actually a strong validation of the importance of this technology, and will no doubt help popularize NPs.

The content of this book can be roughly divided into two halves: an overview of NP technology, and then a case study of the Intel IXP1200, to put the theory into practice. In the NP overview section, Comer does a great job of explaining how network systems have evolved over time, and why and where NPs are being used today. He covers all the main technical issues involved in NP designs, such as memory hierarchies and software structure, and provides a survey of different NPs (which will become dated over time). Comer wisely chose the Intel IXP 1200 as his case study, much to the chagrin of other vendors, I'm sure. This was the best choice, since Intel is having more and more success with the IXP over time, especially as other NP vendors fall by the wayside (even Cisco, which built their own NP, is using the IXP family).

Prof. Comer's writing style is very straightforward and practical. NPs are very complex devices, and Comer does a great job of leading the reader through the complexity, by starting at the highest level and working down into more detail, and by explaining the details in clear language that any reasonably skilled engineer (even at the undergraduate level) should be able to understand. Comer views the world through the eyes of a software engineer, and while hardware purists might complain about the relative lack of hardware details, for a book on NPs this is absolutely the best approach, since the purpose of NPs is to make it possible to implement more functionality in software, thereby improving the flexibility and power of network systems. My only negatives on the book are that I wish some more code examples had been included in earlier chapters, and the fact that Comer will need to produce a 2nd edition at some point soon, as the later generation IXPs become more widely used than the 1200.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, both students and professional engineers, who is looking for a solid introduction to NP technology, especially if they will be using the Intel IXP family. At my current company, even our skilled NP engineers found value in this book, and we will be handing a copy to every new engineer who joins one of our NP project teams.

Good introduction
The book is easy to read, and suitable for those who want an introduction to network processors (NPs). My main gripe is that, for lecturers, it's very difficult, or impossible, to get your hand on network processors at a reasonable price to create a lab to run a course on NPs. Unless this is resolved, this book is a non seller!

Good overview of network processors,but more details desired
I found this book to be a good, easy-to-read introduction to the topic of network processors. It explains clearly the need to offload CPU's from protocol processing tasks and the motivations for designing network processors that are programmable, scalable, flexible to be used for multiple protocol layers and/or locations within a networking system, and yet are fast enough to handle high data rates. It begins with a general introduction to TCP/IP protocol to establish a foundation for explaining the packet processing functions that come later in the book. The central chapters of the book focus on describing the primary division of a network processor's tasks into ingress/egress processing, and offer good explanations of these tasks. The last few chapters survey some examples of commercial network processors with emphasis on Intel's IXP1200, and goes into some details on Network Classification Language. Throughout the book, the challenges and issues that face the design of a network processor are also described.

Although this book provides a good overview, I feel that more technical details would make the book even more informative. For example, although a few general algorithms are presented for some of the packet processing functions, it would be useful to also present in some detail the instruction sets for a few of the commercial network processors, and explain how these instructions can be combined to implement these functions. Alternatively, a minimal instruction set could be developed and used for the purpose of the book to illustrate the principles/tradeoffs that are mentioned. In short, more details on the implementation aspects would be helpful.