Cisco WAN Switching Professional Reference

Switching, as this authoritative book proves, is not just for local area networks (LANs) anymore. If you know what you're doing--and especially if you have Cisco WAN Switching Professional Reference by your elbow--you can set up a wide area network (WAN) without necessarily involving a router. By designing a network around Cisco Systems' IGX, BPX, or MGX families of WAN switching products, you can provide your users with the kind of reliable, high-speed intersite connectivity they need to run IP telephony, IP video, and demanding client-server applications. That's what this book is about. It's an in-depth look at the Cisco way of implementing WAN switching, complete with plenty of command-line entry-and-response listings and details on the relative merits of different Cisco products.

Editor Tracy Thorpe has divided her work into three parts--one each for the IGX, BPX, and MGX lines. Each section defines the capabilities of its equipment before going into detail on its command-line interface (which is not the same as that of Cisco routers). In this section you'll find explicit how-to information on the stuff you have to understand, like configuring ports, setting up network trunks, configuring different kinds of interface cards, and setting up various signaling protocols. Because this will be unfamiliar to pretty much everyone--it's not too similar to Cisco router configuration--the elementary stuff is challenging enough. But Thorpe explains it clearly and patiently, and digs into design work and advanced configuration strategies with clarity and apparent enthusiasm. Each chapter concludes with a series of multiple-choice questions like those you'd find on a Cisco professional certification exam. --David Wall

Topics covered: This book is designed for use as a textbook in three Cisco Systems classes--Multiband Switch and Service Configuration (MSSC), BPX Switch and Service Configuration (BSSC), and MGX ATM Concentrator Configuration (MACC)--and is the definitive encyclopedia on nonrouted connectivity between geographically separate networks via Cisco gear. IGX, BPX, and MGX equipment families are all covered in depth, from the most elemental administrative functions to high-level design work.