A practical handbook for OSPF network design and deployment. OSPF Network Design Solutions presents a detailed, applied look into the workings of the popular Open Shortest Path First protocol, demonstrating how to dramatically increase network performance, security, and the ease with which large-scale networks are maintained. OSPF is thoroughly explained through exhaustive coverage of network design, deployment, management, and troubleshooting. The opening chapters cover network foundations, such as IP addressing, routing, various distance vector and link state protocols, and network protocol selection. Subsequent chapters quickly delve into the details of OSPF routing and network design. Advanced design concepts such as OSPF route distribution and OSPF on-demand circuit design are also covered. Later chapters focus on implementation and troubleshooting issues, network design methodology, and configuration details for different network types and area parameters. Finally, you will learn about some established and experimental techniques designed to contend with network growth. Practical case studies support concepts presented throughout the book. *Learn the most effective OSPF network design and deployment solutions *Master OSPF routing and network design issues such as OSPF convergence, area design, route selection, and VLSM *Ensure network management and security through coverage of SNMP, MIBs, and OSPF's inherent security features *Use system logging and debugging commands to monitor and troubleshoot your network *Anticipate solutions to network growth with knowledge of router CPU utilization, OSPF Internet connections, route summarization, router additions, and network expansion with VLSM

Average Customer Review: ( 24 customer reviews )
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The book focuses on Sam Halabi's Design Guide that is still the most informative document produced on OSPF configuration guidelines. The author acknowledges this and adds some "value added" with the latest Cisco features. Although the book is a hefty 800 pages, the technical content does not justify this.

As a text book goes, and not free reference material, this may in fact be the best OSPF book on the market. This reflects the quality and quantity of reference material available for this subject !

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

Good content, but rife with errors.Jan 19, 2001
By Mike Diehn
Oddly enough, I like this book. Odd because, usually, when a book is so poorly edited and contains so many contradictions and errors, I just plain don't like it. Even though I do like it, I don't trust it completely.

I purchased it orginally as a reference about eight months ago and only recently set out to read it carefully from cover to cover. When I did, I discovered that quite often, the text and accompanying diagrams disagree. Values listed in tables for IP address ranges in A, B, C, D and E class networks disagree with the authors text. At one point, the author references a table showing differences between feature-set differences between RIP, IS-IS and OSPF. When I looked at the table, I discovered that every entry in the table said "Yes," indicating that there were *no* differences. Why include the table? A diagram intended to show a chronological sequence of events has no sequencing information whatsoever. In fact, the diagram added nothing of value to the discussion.

Besides disagreements between text and accompanying tables and and diagrams, there are many errors of grammar that confuse the points the author is trying to make, to the degree that I wasn't able to understand what I'd just read, re-read and read yet again.

At one point, I stoped reading in disbelief that any editor could have allowed this book into print. I checked the flyleaf and found no fewer than eleven editors listed. Amazing. Eleven people listed as various kinds of editors and not one of them caught the errors.

This book reads fairly well; I've learned quite a bit from the author so far (I'm only into chapter four) and, oddly enough, I'm enjoying it in spite of the problems. However, I have to say this looks far more like a rough draft...

I'd strongly recommend that anyone learning OSPF from this book study other works carefully. I can learn from this book, but the number of errors I've found in the first four chapters makes me feel certain that, somewhere, the author has made mistakes that I won't be able to catch. That means I won't be able to trust completely what I've learned from his writing.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed. I rated two stars instead of one star only because of the content and organization, which I find good, even though rife with errors.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Save your Money and just download the Halabi design guide !!Apr 19, 1999

After reading this book i was very disapointed in the lack of technical information on the protocol. I was hoping for an indepth discussion on the packet formats and information on some of the less documented design issues with OSPF networks. If you are serious about learning this protocol then the RFC, Halabis guide, and Jeff Doyles Routing TCP/IP V1, are the only sources of information that hit the spot. To sum up : This book might have a place for mangement that would like a high level view of the protocol, but CCIE's or students studying towards CCIE will find this book very disapointing.

5 of 6 found the following review helpful:

This is Hog WashMay 28, 2001

My attention was first brough to this title becasue I had once taken a class with the author. Surprised that he had written a book I checked out the book in the local book store and found the book discombobulated and full of mistakes. I proceeded to read some of the reviews on the book and a number of the reviews confirmed my initial suspicions. However, I noticed a very peculiar situation recently when I happened across the reviews again on Amazon.com. This book has 12 of 19 ratings of 5 stars (and 2 ratings of 4 stars) and three people who have rated the book 1 star. I have never run across reviews in such contradiction to each other. Although I have only spent an hour or two looking over the book it is clear this title is at best average. It confounds me how anyone in their right mind could rate this book greater than 3 stars, unless however they were a cohort of the author! The only reason I rated this book three stars was not to intentionally bias the rating of the book with out having made a thorough examination.

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