yee@TRIDENT.ARC.NASA.GOV (Peter E. Yee) (12/12/89)
[Tried to post this earlier with poor results. -PEY] Well, I just went out and bought Marshall T. Rose's new book, "The Open Book: A Practical Perspective on OSI." In a word, wow. This is the first time I've read a book on OSI that actually makes sense. I've read plenty of other explanations of OSI that look they were written by ISO committee members -- indecipherable. "The Open Book" presents gives a clear explanation of the OSI layers. More importantly it's brave enough to present the issues that went into the design (some would say misdesign) of the OSI protocols. Rose takes an unusual approach by including soapboxes (actually delimited with the word "soap" in a box) in his text. In the soapbox sections you get to read about the real reasons for some of the weird choices made in develop- ment of the OSI protocols. The book itself is divided into five sections, and is structured in such a way that it could be used as the textbook in a networking course, as a supplemental source. The first section is called an "Introduction to OSI" and gives a brief overview of OSI, networking in general, and some of the players involved. The second section is titled "End-to-End Services" and addresses network and transport services. If you thought OSI was supposed to be interoperable right out of the box, wait until you read this section. "Application Services" is the name of the third section. In this section, Rose explains session, presentation, and application services, as well as abstract syntax, and some of the major OSI components (Directory, MHS, FTAM). The fourth section is "Transition to OSI" and gives a taxonmy of approach to doing OSI in a heavily TCP/IP world. Rose lists several alternative approaches and points out his preferred methods. "The Final Soapbox" is the last section in the book, and is as its name implies a sermon on problems and pitfalls of the standards process and its players. What really impressed me about this book was the high-level of practical information on OSI. If I wanted dry reading I'd just order from ISO. Rose has taken a (overly) complex subject and rendered it understandable. In addition he shows how OSI and TCP/IP can be made to work together (inevitable, I guess). This probably irks the ISORMites, but let's face it, after reading this book, you'll probably think twice about running a full OSI stack. Of course, thise may not have been his actual intention. :-) Anyhow, for those interested in getting a copy, I've entered the following from the copyright page: Rose, Marshall T. The Open Book: A Practical Perspective on OSI ISBN 0-13-643016-3 Copyright 1990, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Although the copyright date is 1990, the book has apparently been available since October. I wish I had known earlier so that I could have gotten my copy earlier. -Peter Yee yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov ames!yee PS I don't claim to be an expert on these things. You got my honest report on a book I really like. I also don't claim to represent NASA in giving this report.