Galina Pildush
1 A solid book on ATM & its implementation on Cisco equipment
In 1997 I found myself configuring an ATM/SONET based WAN, with no documentation to turn to other than forum White Papers. What I would have given for this book then!
Having read a number of ATM books now, I can say that this is one of the better ones. The writing is relatively clear, and it moves quickly from topic to topic. In addition to the 560+ pages of core text, the book has hundreds of pages of lab exercises and with detailed solutions, and a thick glossary.
On the whole this book isn't so golden that I would rank it among the crown jewels of Cisco Press (i.e. the Routing TCP/IP series) but it is a solid book, and covers precisely what the title suggests that it does. If you had to read just ONE book on ATM, you could do worse than to pick this one.
2 I have to Disagree
After purchasing this book a year ago, I am about 400 pages in and totally frustrated. It is like a collection of white papers about ATM theory. Sure, good info, but I want to know how to IMPLEMENT and design ATM networks. The writing style is awful -ex. "the partner agrees on this, that, and the other stuff" (pg. 140). The English usage is suspect at best, leaving the reader with impression that a number of writers had their hands on this one, and that many had English as a second language. While there is some good info in here, as well as some lab exercises, a solid, well-written book on ATM has yet to appear. After about 500 pages of this, you won't even consider putting this technology into your WAN -it comes accross as an administrative nightmare, obtuse, arcane, and altogether incomprehensible.
3 Almost there !!
Nicely written & very informative.Though I was left with a lot of knowledge of the terms / build up of ATM ... I just did not get a real good enough 'grip' on this subject by reading this book !! Considering the reviews that this book already has from other readers, I'm sure I must be just the exception !!
4 AWESOME READ! Galina you have done it again!!!
Having had the benefit of having Galina be my instructor for my CCIE boot camp class, I was impressed right from the start! I walked in a pretty Vanilla NP/DP. 2 weeks when I stepped out of that classroom I had felt my skills and knowledge multiply by 3-4x. That is exactly what you will get from this book. You "WILL" be able to walk out to a customer site and not only pitch ATM and sell them on it, but also have the confidence to design, configure, and T.S. ATM if need be. This book gets brought along with my Cisco LAN Switching book now as part of my reference library when I am working on projects. It is also a very integral part of my library. My only complaint is WHY WASN'T THIS RELEASED 2 YEARS AGO??? Keep up the good work Galina, your an invaluable asset to the Cisco community and to the Networking community as a whole!
5 Best ATM book I've seen, or read.
Ms. Pildush both loves ATM, and believes in it. However, she is also a realist, and clearly aware of how well positioned ATM's competitors are. I found this highly technical book hard to put down, because it articulated a viewpoint. In an understated and very professional way she makes a strong case for ATM vs. Gigabit Ethernet, and ATM vs. IP over Sonet.
Still, there were a couple of minor disappointments. Firstly, I didn't get a clear picture of the physical network landscape. I would like someone to draw a map--either a nationwide or global map--that lays out existing wide area networks (ATM, Frame Relay, etc.), and clearly shows what their role is. Secondly, although she does say she prefers ATM as the protocol for DSL, there's almost no discussion of DSL. If ATM becomes the protocol of choice for ADSL, and Ethernet for cable modems, wouldn't the total amount of data strongly affect the overall competition?
There's discussion of enumerable routers (why am I not surprised?), and many details (standards, layered architectures, etc.), but even with all the detail, the material seems effortlessly presented, and is easily understood. On balance, a fine job.
6 Excellent Book!
ATM is a huge topic and this book does a good job of presenting the fundamentals and the most important things. It has numerous excellent labs, but it is too bad I don't have the expensive ATM hardware to practice them on. Nonetheless, this book presents the material in an easy to read fashion as opposed to the ATM Forum page.
7 What a great book for anyone interested in ATM
I was thrown into a situation a week ago where I need to come up to speed very quickly in ATM topologies. Cisco ATM Solutions answered all of my questions.
The step-by-step introduction to the ATM design made for easy for me to brush-up on ATM principals, and the back of the book with actual designs was great.
This book is perfect for the first time ATM'er as well as the seasoned CCIE. A must have in anyone's telephony technology libary.
