Computer Networking 5e

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.