May well be the best multicasting book available
Rating:
5 / 5
Multicasting is truly a technology solution in search of a problem. Excepting highly specialized conferencing applications (a few of which are mentioned here) it is difficult to see how multicasting can be a money-making service for carriers and providers, and the protocols have yet to really penetrate to wide deployment. That said, knowledge of this separate realm of IP networking is a must for any professional in the telecom space. I'm glad to say that this book rewards determined scrutiny. As a technical writer supporting a very complex product line that has recently added PIM-SM to its bag of tricks, I've found this book painstaking and tremendously informative. You will need to understand IP networking before approaching this title; on the assumption that you do, you will fully understand shared trees, SPTs, and their combination in PIM to an absolute fare-thee-well. My focus when reading this book was on IGMP and PIM-SM, so I have not read absolutely every page of this title. However, Williamson breaks the processes down packet-by-packet for each protocol in the multicasting suite in almost excruciating detail. Advanced coverage of topics such as registration, pruning, and Rendezvous Point behavior means that you will have complete mastery of Cisco multicasting, and for any platform that conforms to the standards, by the time you are finished. This is an excellent, excellent effort in what I think is a consistently solid networking series.
Absolutely the best Multicast book available
Rating:
5 / 5
This is the best multicast book on the market. It is a must have whether you are preparing for the CCIE Lab or just want to understand multicast.The explanation was simple and clear. There are tons of configuration examples covering pretty much all kinds of scenarios. The author actually explained every single line of the configurations. I bought this book for my Lab exam, and after two days of reading, 99.99% of my questions were answered (the only one I still have is I actually made PIM-DM work in a hub-spoke frame relay network. The prune message from one spoke was actually seen by the other spoke, I don't know why the hub would forward it out). I have to admit this is one of the best books I've read for a long time. Just like Jeff Doyle's TCP/IP Routing is the Bible of IGP, this book is the Bible of Multicast.
Simply A "Must-Have" For Lab Prep
Rating:
5 / 5
Beau's book is indeed the true Multicasting Bible. I was totally new to multicasting when I began my CCIE studies, and having achieved that certification yesterday, I can tell you that Beau's book really opened the door for me on a topic that just isn't covered well elsewhere. The only recommendation I'd make to readers is that if the first 10 chapters aren't quite sinking in, go through the actual configuration chapters (they're at the back of the book), and then reread the theory chapters. It worked for me. Chris Bryant
CCIE #12933
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