Gigabit Ethernet: Technology and Applications for High-Speed LANs

If you don't mind a little corny humor mixed in with your technology, then you'll be delighted with Rich Seifert's Gigabit Ethernet. Written in an unpretentious, highly accessible style, this book provides an enlightening overview of Gigabit Ethernet and offers a historical peek into the Ethernet world. Despite Seifert's personal history (he was one of the original architects of the Ethernet standard), he refrains from the hard sell, instead offering a balanced, reasonably objective take on the subject. The book does lack a centralized glossary; however, the abundant and generous footnotes and clear text more than make up for this shortcoming.

Gigabit Ethernet is divided into three parts--Foundations of Gigabit Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet Technology, and Applying Gigabit Ethernet. The first section strolls down memory lane, telling the story of Ethernet itself, one of the industry's most venerated technologies. Seifert ends these preliminary chapters with sections on how Gigabit Ethernet will address some of the older technology's drawbacks. The section on Gigabit Ethernet technology begins with an overview of the standard and its technological fundamentals, ends with the irreverently titled "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gigabit Ethernet Standard," and delves into media access control, hubs, and physical layer architecture in between. Wrapping up this volume are chapters covering how Gigabit Ethernet would be deployed in a real-world network, performance issues, and competing technologies. --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt