Authors: Shannon McFarland, Muninder Sambi, Nikhil Sharma, Sanjay Hooda
Available from Cisco Press, list price $65.
What is this book about?
This book tackles the middle ground between the conceptual theory behind IPv6 and the ultra technical command-line how-to manuals. It goes much deeper than simply router and switch considerations (although it goes into plenty of detail on both) to include: address management, deployment, WAN/branch, data center, and virtualization.
Who should read this book?
The authors were very clear about the fact they did not write this as a stand-alone IPv6 introduction. It is expected that you already know the basics of IPv6. Enterprise level technicians and more technical managers would get the most out of reading this book. It is very technical, so generalists need not apply.
What did I like about this book?
The subjects the authors have chosen made the book especially appealing to me. Many of the planning considerations I’ve had to deal with in daily operations were brought up, in many cases with suggestions on how to do it better (or at least differently) than I’ve previously decided on. I really appreciate the author’s choice to include non-Cisco products that see frequent implementation: VMWare ESX and vCenter, Server 2008, Windows 7, etc.
What didn’t I like about this book?
There were a few cases where the authors would not go into the level of detail, especially on the command line implementation, that I would have liked to see. The authors also have a very different concept of “simple” than I do.
Should you buy this book?
Absolutely! This is one of the few reference materials on IPv6 that did not leave me feeling daunted by the upcoming transitions. They covered some very specific topics I have not seen covered in other IPv6 materials, and they were very clear about the topics that were left unresolved as of the writing of the book.