Optical Network Control, Architecture, Protocols, and Standards [Book ...

The New Books and Multimedia column contains brief reviews of new hooks in the computer communications field. Each review includes a highly abstracted description of the contents, relying on tfie publisher’s descriptive materials, minus advertising superlatives, and checked for accuracy against a copy of the book. The reviews also comment on the structure and the target audience of each hook. Publishers wishing to have their hooks listed in this manner should send copies and appropriate advertising materials to Ioanis Nikolaidis at the address below, with an indication that books are intended for the IEEE Network New Books and Multimedia column. Appropriate hooks will he reviewed in the column. Ioanis Nikolaidis Computing Science Department, University ofAlberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E8

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Optical Network Control, Architecture, Protocols, and Standards Greg Bernstein, Bola Rajagopolan, and Debanian Saho, 2004, Pearson/ Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0201-75301-4, 444 pages, hardcover The book Optical Network Control, Architecture, Protocols, and Standards by Bernstein, Rajagopalan, and Saha is different from other available hooks on optical networks because of its admitted focus on the control plane. It addresses the gap between older “dumb” control technologies (requiring manual intervention) and the new advanced control mechanisms (affording us increased automation and leading to “intelligent” network control) that have been developed in recent years, while also vendorproprietary control protocols a r e gradually giving way to open standards. T h e book’s audience is presumably technologists dealing with tasks of planning, design, and provisioning of optical networks, as well as managers interested in the business case for efficiency and profitability using.advanced control architectures. However, t h e overall book also stands as a handy generalpurpose reference work for control and signaling protocols on and around optical networks. Accordingly, beyond a few introductory sections, the hulk of the hook is dedicated to how and why the control plane operates the way it does in optical networks, and what one can accomplish using it. We find a fairly extensive review of t h e control in WDM)/DWDM and SONETISDH, followed by an emphasis on mesh-based optical networks and existing ring networks, as well as techniques for protection and restoration. Subsequently, a review of emerging, proposed, and future protocols for routing and/or signaling are presented (GMPLS, ASON, optical UNI). The topic of signaling is extended into its uses for protection and restoration. The route calculation and

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path selection problems are stated analytically in their optimization formulations, and solution techniques a r e presented. Further chapters address the problem of scalable interdomain control and how network management systems and the control plane relate in the context of optical networks.

Implementing CIFS: The Common Internet File System Christopher R. Hertel, 2004, Pearson/Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-130471 16-X, 641 pages, softcover CIFS (and its previous nameiincarnation, SMB) is a protocol in common use, about which very little is known to the broader community on how exactly it operates. The synergy of little information (especially in its early years), its evolution alongside the MS Windows product line (resulting in many versions with seemingly small differences from each other), and the existence of several ambiguities (in the few cases where documentation of some form was available) together compounded the problem of making SMB operate with non-Windows,environments. A brave team of developers (the Samba team) accomplished the implementation of SMBi CIFS in an open source product that became instantly popular with users striving t o make Windows and UNIX systems interoperate. Christopher Hertel is one of the members of the Samba team, and he has stories to tell. Indeed, what makes the hook readable is not that it describes how to implement a protocol, hut rather the twists and turns, the ways in which packet traces, sample code, and obscure documentation come together, mixed with a good dose of humor about the task at hand. The light prose makes the hook easy t o follow despite its length (-600 pages). The technical content is split i n t o t h r e e parts. The first, NetBIOS over TCPiIP (NBT), connects the history of NetBIOS to early DOS years, describes the

name, datagram, and session services, and the scope concept, and it follows up with NBT’s implementation. The name, datagram, and session services are then expanded on in further detail, sufficient enough to aid anyone wishing to build the service from scratch. The service message block (SMB) is the topic of the second part of the hook, detailing the message structure, header, negotiation process, session setup, and fairly elahorate set of authentication options in SMB. The final part is dedicated to the Browse Service, the abstractions in support of it (mailslot and named pipe), the distributed election process, and several enhancements (supported by Samba). Each part comes with chapter(s) dealing specifically with t h e less obvious elements of the protocol, the ambiguities, and the configuration pitfalls. T h e appendices include NetBIOS suffix values, the SMB URL, the CIFS Technical Reference, and instructions for preparing a good cup of tea!

How Secure Is Your Wireless Network? Safeguarding Your

Wi-Fi IAN lee Barken, 2004, Pearson/Prentice

Hall, ISBN 0-13-140206.4. 199 pages, softcover Starting with a somewhat alarmist title, Lee Barken’s hook is meant t o grab the attention of practitioners and, in general, owners of home office wireless LANs, and to convince them of the need to include the hest security setup their equipment can support. However, this is also the hook of a self-admitted “tinkerer,” resulting in what amounts to a collection of odds and ends in addition to the main theme. For example, an Appendix idetailing the Pringles potato chips can antenna (a niche topic already popular among tinkerers and extensively documented on the Web) is presented. Yet another example is a chapter devoted to how to set up a secure public hotspot using a Linux-based access point, and it reflects the general interest of its author in community wireless networking. In another chapter, “wardriving” is explained: the task of roaming around streets to detect available access points and inspect what (if any) security measures these access points employ. T h e idea is that “wardriving” is an “enemy” action, and the reader, assuming heishe is not alarmed yet, will he convinced of the danger because putting together the necessary components for wardriving appears to he a trivial task by today’s standards. As far as the main topic is concerned, t h e hook avoids

IEEE Network * MayNune 2004

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