Cisco Router Internetworking (Paperback or Softback)

This text presents readers with the concepts and commands required to configure Cisco routers in multiprotocol internetworks. Examples, excercises and tests are included to allow readers to learn to qualify for Cisco certification.

You can't get too far on the Internet before encountering a Cisco router, which is why it's a good idea to understand how those routers talk to other devices and make up the global network. Cisco Router Internetworking explains how Cisco routers transmit packets and share information about their available routes with the rest of the network. It provides readers with practical information on configuring Cisco routers and does a pretty good job of explaining complex internetworking concepts like route metrics and wide area network connectivity.

Author Paul Amman, a Cisco-certified internetworking expert, assumes readers have little advance knowledge of the topic. That's not to say that this is a Dummies-level approach to the subject (dummies shouldn't try to become router technicians). But the book does take time to explain fundamental concepts like the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) reference model and the TCP/IP protocol stack. Most of this information is text-based, the written word and listings of router input and output, but diagrams drive home ideas about data flow and decision-making processes. Newcomers to the Cisco environment will like Cisco Router Internetworking's way of presenting a problem, explaining (academically) the protocol or other solution for that problem, and then (in explicit terms) how to implement and customize it with Cisco equipment and the Internetworking Operating System (IOS). --David Wall

Topics covered: Cisco hardware and software technologies for connecting computer networks across geographic space. The book focuses on the OSI reference model, the TCP/IP stack, the basics of using Cisco IOS, and the details of implementing various network and routing protocols in the Cisco environment. It also addresses the Inter-Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) and Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP), plus IPX, AppleTalk, X.25, and various WAN connectivity solutions.