chris@yarra.oz.au (Chris Jankowski) (09/07/90)
Summary of the summary: - This is the best book on OSI there is (now). Original question first: >From RFC1175: > Rose, Marshall T., The Open Book: A Practical Perspective on OSI, 651 > pgs., Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989. > > This is a comprehensive book about Open Systems Interconnection > (OSI). In particular, this book focuses on the pragmatic aspects > of OSI: what OSI is, how OSI is implemented, and how OSI is > integrated with existing networks. In order to provide this > pragmatic look at OSI the book makes consistent comparisons and > analogies of the OSI pieces with the TCP/IP suite of networking > protocols. > >What do you think about the book? Is it worth buying? >What I am after is a book which would be an equivalent of the Comer's >book on Internet but obout OSI. >How would you compare it with the Comer's book on Internet? >Is it similar in style, depth, objective and clarity? I received about 10 answers. The summary is divided into two parts - 1)general opinions and 2)comparisons with Comer's book. 1). General opinions. --------------------- From Werner H.P. Vogels werner@nikhefk.nikhef.nl: The best thing about mtr's book is that is very realistic about the use of OSI in the real world. It gives credit to the Interenet Suite as well as to the OSI stack and flames on them if nessecary. From: Aled Morris <aledm@logitek.co.uk> Excellent, absolutely essential. Buy 2 copies, and a copy for each of your friends. Book of the year, in my opinion. From: oliveau@CS.UCLA.EDU (Greg Oliveau) The book is very good. I haven't read the TCP/IP book you mention, but I'm sure that Rose's is as good, especially when complemented with Knightson, Knowles, and Larmouth's 'Standards for Open Systems Interconnection' and another book whose title I can't remember ... From krupczak@secola.Columbia.NCR.COM I just recently read Marshal Rose's book on OSI. It was excellent. It covered all the material that I would have wanted to know about OSI. From: cmorris@ingres.com (Colin Morris) I had three years exposure to OSI before I read the book, so I wasn't exactly using the book to introduce me to the subject. My overall impression was that it was well written but very variable in the depth of treatment given to different subject areas. The book attempts to cover layers 3 thru' 7 but succeeds best at layers 5 and 6:- the treatment of the session and presentation layers (+ASN.1) is most thorough, although there is too much emphasis on "service" as opposed to "protocol". The treatment of network layer structure is ok too. Where the book is weak is in a description of the transport protocol(s) and the various application layer standards. Apart from ACSE, ROSE and RTSE the descriptions are really too flimsy to be of much more than general use. Also lacking is material on Application Layer Structure, although I presume this was due to lack of standards stability in thia area when the book was written. The practical aspects of the book, in particular migration strategies from TCP networks, are an excellent read. I would certainly recommend purchase of the book, particularly for those people who are fairly new to the subject area or who are interested in migration from TCP networks. One final point:- the copy I have has an undue number of irritating typographical errors. Hopefully a new edition of the book will put this right. From: aaron@dragoon.telcom.arizona.edu (Aaron Leonard) Terribly proofread. Information is sometimes excruciatingly dull, which goes with the territory. (I could no more get thru the ASN.1 stuff than _Finnegans Wake_.) Discussion of the OSI model itself is strong. Treatment of issues in addressing and routing was good, tho I think too dismissive of higher-layer gatewaying. What saves the book is Rose's wit and frankness. His "soapboxes", where he offers his Humble Opinion on the usefulness or approriateness of some feature of OSI, is what I consider to be the real substance. Overall impression: If you NEED to learn about OSI NOW, then you MUST read this book as there is no alternative. If not, I'd wait for a year or 2 and see what surfaces. From: kzm@nms.hls.com (Keith McCloghrie) It is an excellent text which covers the spectrum of OSI layers. It is both scholarly and readable; it gives plenty of examples; with 100 hundred pages on the presentation layer, I use it as my ASN.1 textbook. The sections on the applications (FTAN, MHS, etc.) are less detailed (due to lack of space) but are still excellent introductions to those applications. Yet, at the same time, it also provides the author's opinions (within passages each of which is marked in the margin as a "soapbox"). The opinions are at times controversial, which not only makes excellent reading but is thought-provoking in deciding whether you (the reader) agree with the expressed opinions. From: johnan@mchale.ism.isc.com (John Antypas) I'm only one view here, but for myself at least, the Open Book is probably one of the clearest explanations of OSI we've seen yet -- and that's saying quite a lot -- unless you LIKE reading standards documents! Rumor has it that Prentace Hall has another text concerning OSI that I saw at Interop last year, but I have yet to find it. 2.) Comparisons with Comer's Internet book. ------------------------------------------- Werner H.P. Vogels werner@nikhefk.nikhef.nl: It is different from Comer's in the way that it focusses on the upper level's of the OSI reference model. For a good reference on the low levels you should use Tanenbaum's network book second edition. From krupczak@secola.Columbia.NCR.COM After reading Comer's book on TCP/IP and the Internet, Rose's book comapres well. From: aaron@dragoon.telcom.arizona.edu (Aaron Leonard) NOT in the same class as Comer's _Internetworking with TCP/IP_. (Of course, Comer has years of practical experience, real applications, etc. to draw upon, but OSI has none of that.) ;-) From: kzm@nms.hls.com (Keith McCloghrie) Some would say it's better than Comer's. Certainly, OSI is a tougher subject than TCP/IP. I mentioned style and depth above. Don't mistake the use of soapboxes, as a lack of objectivity; anywhere not marked as a "soapbox" is completely objective. As for clarity, there is no better text that I know of about OSI. From Bill Barns: To my kmnowledge, no book comparable to Comer exists for OSI and I doubt that one will be created any time soon. Open Book is about the best available and you might as well buy it (everyone else does), but it isn't as concrete as Comer because in the OSI world, these things are still being figured out. I think that is a limitation we just have to accept for a while yet. And in part, it will probably exist forever, because OSI is rather broader than TCP/IP and thus won't be able to be covered to the same depth in anything like the same number of pages, once we have figured out the right details. This is wild speculation, but I'd estimate a treatment of ALL of the OSI protocols to comparable depth would run about 5000 pages. From: Michael Stein I think it's better than Comer's (but than I know more about TCP/IP than OSI stuff). ---------------------------- Thanks again to all respondents. -m------- Chris Jankowski - Senior Systems Engineer chris@yarra.oz{.au} ---mmm----- Pyramid Technology Corporation Pty. Ltd. fax +61 3 820 0536 -----mmmmm--- 11th Floor, 14 Queens Road tel. +61 3 820 0711 -------mmmmmmm- Melbourne, Victoria, 3004 AUSTRALIA (03) 820 0711 "Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight." -- William Safire