Building the Mobile Internet
Authors: Mark Grayson, Kevin Shatzkamer and Klaas Wierenga
Pages: 300
Publisher: Cisco Press
ISBN: 1587142430
Introduction
It is common knowledge that the world is going mobile, and that we want to be able to connect to the Internet wherever we are. As the Internet’s original protocols and design weren’t actually built for mobility, the challenge that future network architects and engineers face as more and more people have access to quite a few mobile devices is how to effect a seamless convergence of IP and mobile technologies in order to ease the transition into what it seems will be an all-IP future.
About the authors
Mark Grayson, Cisco Distinguished Consulting Engineer, leads Cisco’s mobile architecture strategy.
Kevin Shatzkamer, Cisco Distinguished Systems Architect, is responsible for long-term strategy and architectural evolution of Cisco mobile wireless networks.
Klaas Wierenga, Senior Consulting Engineer in Cisco’s Office of the CTO, has 15+ years of experience implementing diverse mobility, security, and identity solutions.
Inside the book
The book kicks off with a short chapter in which key mobility trends are pointed out and predictions about future mobile device use are made – all in a very clear and concise manner.
The authors say that to read – and understand – this book, you must have at least a basic understanding of standard network technologies, and it is definitely true.
Although, they do a pretty good job at explaining a number of concepts tied to the Internet (various communication protocols, host addressing and such) – all with the aim of giving you a clear understanding of the difficulties you will encounter when trying to perform the usually simple task of session maintaining when nodes engage in the session move about.
And when that happens, other problems surface. Such as the problem of authentication and authorization, federated access, privacy and security, etc. So how do you solve these problems?
In truth, there are various approaches that work – depending on which layer of the TCP/IP stack you choose to solve the mobility problem: Data Link, Network, Transport/Session or Application.
Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks, and the authors are intent on explaining them in depth so that when the moment of decision comes, you will be equipped to weight the pros and cons of each solution and choose the one that best suits you.
Final thoughts
I’m not the target demographic for this book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Simple, clear writing and helpful and suitable diagrams and explanations are what makes the knowledge collected in this book easy to absorb even for the people who have an aversion to three letter acronyms.