Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access Service

You can't go far toward building a distributed Windows 2000 environment without routing and remote access services (RRAS). In Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access Services, Kackie Charles explains what she's learned about RRAS during her career as a systems designer and implementer. She's learned a lot, to put it simply, and she does a super job in this book of sharing her knowledge. If you're going to be doing any RRAS work at all, from establishing a simple wide area network (WAN) link between headquarters and a branch office to setting up a global network of telecom links, you ought to read this. You'll get the information you need and enjoy the process of absorbing it.

Charles's style of explaining RRAS concepts is appealing. Instead of subjecting everything to dry documentation or overly simple academic examples of how transmissions take place, she essentially tells stories. For example, if a user in the New Orleans office wants to get a file from a computer in Houston, and a demand-dial T1 link is involved, here is what happens. Furthermore, here is the configuration work that had to be done to get the transmission to go through properly. She includes straight documentation where it's appropriate, but her approach mainly serves to get designers and administrators thinking about what they will have to do in a Windows 2000 WAN environment. --David Wall

Topics covered: Everything to do with routing and remote access services under Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, and DataCenter Server for the benefit of systems designers, implementers, and operators. Routing concepts, Virtual Private Networks, dial-up networking, wide area network (WAN) links, and lots more.