Upgrading and Repairing Networks (2nd Edition)
Though he didn't do the writing himself, Scott Mueller's involvement inUpgrading and Repairing Networksis evident in the thoroughness of the  book's coverage and the quality with which documentation has been written and  compiled. Like Mueller's highly respected books on personal computer hardware,  this book treats its subject in great depth, acknowledging that information  about older technologies is valuable to the significant numbers of people who  still run those technologies. Pretty much every local area network (LAN)  technology from the past 15 years--as well as the most popular internetworking  technologies and the emerging wireless networking protocols--are documented  here. Author Terry Ogletree explains how the technologies work in order to help  you figure out where to turn when they're misbehaving. One difference between  this book and the PC hardware book: this one is much less hardware-centric,  focusing instead on software, protocols, and network services.Ogletree relies  heavily on text, and takes time to explain everything from the histories of  various protocols to Microsoft's design goals for Active Directory in Windows  2000 networks. Reading his text is rewarding, particularly if you have an  appropriately networked system nearby with which you can investigate the  features he points out. Operating system coverage is broad--Unix, Linux,  NetWare, and Windows are all covered in turn--though most generic sections (such  as those having to do with protocols) use Windows NT or Windows 2000 in their  examples.--David WallTopics covered:The state of the art in local and wide area networking  technology (emphasis on LANs), and the older technologies that led us here.  Physical network design, protocols, operating systems, and services all get  attention.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.