Product Description

Building on the successful top-down approach of previous editions, the Fifth Edition of Computer Networking continues with an early emphasis on application-layer paradigms and application programming interfaces, encouraging a hands-on experience with protocols and networking concepts. With this edition, Kurose and Ross have revised and modernized treatment of some key chapters to integrate the most current and relevant networking technologies.

Networking today involves much more than standards specifying message formats and protocol behaviors–and it is far more interesting. Professors Kurose and Ross focus on describing emerging principles in a lively and engaging manner and then illustrate these principles with examples drawn from Internet architecture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78390 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Certain data-communication protocols hog the spotlight, but they all have a lot in common. Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet explains the engineering problems inherent in communicating digital information from point to point. The top-down approach mentioned in the subtitle means the book starts at the top of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol stack--with the application layer--and works its way down through the other six layers until it reaches bare wire. The approach is definitely theoretical--don't look here for instructions on configuring Windows 2000 or a Cisco router--but it is relevant to reality and should help anyone who needs to understand networking as a programmer, system architect or even administration guru.

The treatment of the network layer, where routing takes place, is typical of the style overall. In discussing routing, authors Kurose and Ross explain (by way of lots of clear, definition-packed text) what routing protocols need to do: find the best route to a destination. They then present the mathematics that determine the best path, show some C code that implements those algorithms and illustrate the logic with excellent conceptual diagrams. Real-life implementations of the algorithms--including Internet Protocol (both IPv4 and IPv6) and several popular IP routing protocols--help you make the transition from pure theory to networking technologies. --David Wall

From the Back Cover

This text, partially available online and accessible through any Web browser, puts Internet protocols in the spotlight in its coverage of computer network technologies, and uses this as motivation for studying some of the more fundamental computer networking concepts. It takes a top-down approach, first exposing students to a concrete application before discussing the network services needed to support these applications. This allows students to develop an intuitive feel for what protocols are in the context of network applications (e.g., the Web, ATM, and e-mail) which they use daily. The book also contains material on application programming development, which allows students to write actual application-level programs and gain first-hand experience in socket programming.

• Includes many interactive features, such as direct access to the Traceroute program, direct access to search engines for Internet Drafts, Java applets that animate difficult concepts, and (in the near future) direct access to streaming audio
• Internet focus motivates students to learn more about other network technologies
• Discusses not only what networks can do, but also the principles behind them
• Well-suited for asynchronous online courses

About the Author
James Kurose teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research interests include network protocols and architecture, network measurement, sensor networks, multimedia communication, and modeling and performance evaluation. He received his PhD from Columbia University.

Keith Ross is a professor of computer science at Polytechnic University. He has worked in peer-to-peer networking, Internet measurement, video streaming, Web caching, multi-service loss networks, content distribution networks, voice over IP, optimization, queuing theory, optimal control of queues, and Markov decision processes. Professor Ross received his PhD in Computer and Control Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Customer Reviews

Well written, very readable -- good overview of new topics
This is a good and well written book covering new and emerging topics in computer networks. It includes extensive coverage of multimedia themes and protocols, and also covers other applications such as Web (HTTP) and Email (SMTP, IMAP and POP). There is also good coverage of TCP/IP and various inter-router protocols such as RIP, and multicast support in routers such as IGMP. The diagrams are useful and frequent.

Interviews with leading researchers and pioneers are refreshing -- and very useful in a classroom setting. I have used this book for an undergraduate course on computer networking, and also used material within the book on a distributed systems course. I have had positive responses from many students in the class, many of whom have rated this book as possibly one of the best textbooks in the area.

Perhaps, the only thing missing in the book is a chapter on mobile communications (such as integrating wired and wireless networks).

Excellent detailed approach to networking
This book is a very easy to read book considering the amount of techincal knowledge involved. it is suitable for anyone interested in networking and is easy to understand even from a beginners perspective.

excellent book
the book is very easy to read and provides a wonderful explanation of the issues surrounding network management, quality of service, multimedia networking and network security. However those are the later chapters, the earlier chapters of the book provides a very readable and detailed explanation of the 5-layer Internet protocol stack.

A highly recommended book for students that provides all you need to know regarding the Internet and its protocol stack and the introduction and detailed overview of the three major issues that surround the Internet (multimedia networking, network security and network management).