Cisco Self-Study: Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks (METRO) at Dominant Systems Book Store

Plan, design, and configure high-speed fiber-optic networks

Coverage includes:

Configuring ONS 15454 and ONS 15327 platforms
Architecture for building Metropolitan Ethernet Transparent LAN Services (TLS)
Packet over SONET (PoS) network design, configuration, and verification
Inner workings of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), including operability with the ONS 15216 product family
Principles of Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT)
SONET background, including structures, components, and network design
Bonus case studies, which challenge you to select equipment and design a metro optical network

Fiber-optic networking has several significant advantages over traditional wired and wireless networks: optical signals can travel much farther than electrical signals, are more secure, are resistant to electromagnetic interference, and have the potential to provide bandwidth in the terabits per second range (1000 Gbps).

Service providers must satisfy the always-increasing networking demands of customers while keeping costs to a minimum. Optical networks must meet the challenge of supporting multiple types of transmissions including voice, video, and data traffic. Although time-division multiplexing (TDM) has provided a growth path for services, it is more constrained than IP + Optical strategies like the Cisco Dynamic Packet Transport (Resilient Packet Ring). The Cisco Systems® end-to-end IP + Optical networking strategy provides an intelligent converged network in which optical infrastructures can be used to their fullest potential.

While most reference books focus on the theory involved in SONET and optical infrastructures, Cisco Self-Study: Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks (METRO) focuses on the practical application of planning and configuring optical networks that involve SONET, DWDM, Metropolitan Ethernet, Packet over SONET, and Dynamic Packet Transport (Resilient Packet Ring).

Cisco Self-Study: Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks (METRO) is part of a recommended learning path from Cisco Systems that can include simulation and hands-on training from authorized Cisco Learning Partners and self-study products from Cisco Press. To find out more about instructor-led training, e-learning, and hands-on instruction offered by authorized Cisco Learning Partners worldwide, please visit www.cisco.com/go/authorizedtraining.

This volume is in the Certification Self-Study Series offered by Cisco Press. Books in this series provide officially developed training solutions to help networking professionals understand technology implementations and prepare for the Cisco Career Certifications examinations.

158705070607312003

Customer Reviews & Comments
I recently read the book titled "Cisco Self-Study: Building Cisco Metro Optical Networks (METRO)" by Dave Warren and Dennis Hartmann. ISBN: 1587050706. This book has some pretty good information on the topic of Metro Optical Networks. The key word in this title is 'optical'. I think this book is very well organized to help the reader understand foundational concepts of Metro Area Optical Networking as well as grasping the application of the different technologies. The book accomplishes this by first laying down the foundation of a given topic then presenting a practical application of the technology. The application of the technology is geared more for Cisco Equipment, but nonetheless gives the reader a whole view on the topic. The first three chapters offer superb information on the foundational information regarding the applications that Metro Area Network supports. Being an enterprise type person I was able to grasp the concepts of Metro Optical rather easily. There are review questions at the end of each chapter that really helps to re-enforce the content of the chapter. It also helps to identify whether a particular concept was understood correctly and in the right context. This book is best suited for Service Provider design and implementation Engineers, but enterprise engineers will find this book equally intriguing, because of how it unlocks the mysteries of Metro Area Optical Networking. Consultant in the Metro Area Networking space will find this book to be worth its weight in gold. Not many folks take the time to understand the often-complex world of MAN and what Service Providers are offering, beyond the marketing pitch. One thing that would have been useful in this book would have been a glossary of terms. Although the author has done a good job of explaining terms throughout the book, a glossary of terms would have been a handy place to reference in the future. One can still utilize the index and locate a term or topic rather quickly. Because the title is written to educate the reader on Optical networks, it has an outstanding section covering SONET. Yes, there are other books on the market that cover SONET with more detail and a little fluff, however I'm not one to dedicate my life to the pursuit of learning every detail about SONET, that I will probably never need. After all I'm not in R & D. This title documents SONET really well. Giving good illustrations and is not so lengthy that you have to block out a Saturday just to get through a concept. The authors did a good job of consolidating the information. So the topic in not overwhelming, but gives the reader a solid understanding of the technology. The title covers basic information about the Cisco ONS 15454 and the Cisco ONS 15327 as well as initial configuration of the equipment. There are figures in the book that are snapshots of the application used to configure the equipment. While this could be very useful, in my opinion, it's a little risky because if the interface should ever change, then the book is now dated. On second thought, what isn't dated these days? A section I found rather valuable is a section on configuring SONET timing. Network timing in general is often misunderstood at many levels. The authors did a good job of documenting the challenges of network timing. This title has a fairly short chapter on Metro Ethernet. If you're interested in Metro Ethernet I would recommend the title "Metro Ethernet" by Sam Halabi, ISBN: 158705096XThis book seems like a good place to start when setting out to understand Metro Area Optical Networks, but with the combination of adding implementation detail, it's just enough information to help grasp the concept of the technology. It doesn't seem to be a book that one would go to for actual implementation/configuration details, but rather a place to understand the technology and to get a basic understanding of how a given technology is implemented.

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