In Cisco Switched Internetworks, Lewis applies his trademark thoroughness and clarity to switched systems, explaining how Cisco products work as part of switched virtual local area networks (VLANs) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) schemes in general. He also provides plenty of information about the theory and design of switched connections among networks. Before getting into the details of Cisco implementations, he explains LAN switching and provides lots of detail on the various ways (including RFC 1577 and LAN emulation) of implementing wide area networks (WANs) by encapsulating TCP/IP information in ATM network traffic.
But this book really earns its place on your shelf with its Cisco-specific implementation information. Lewis provides explicit hardware and software configuration information for the Cisco 5000 series, 5500 series, and 2916XL. While they're not exactly recipes, the discussions and listings presented here will help you build robust switched networks. One particularly interesting passage has to do with implementing voice over IP (VoIP) on the Cisco MC3810, complete with a connection to a PBX. --David Wall