Press Room

Press Release: June 26, 2007

Network Warrior--New from O'Reilly: How to Win the Complex Battles of Networking

Sebastopol, CA--Network managers looking to work smarter and improve their job performances will find the useful, real-world tools they need in Gary Donahue's new book, Network Warrior (O'Reilly, $44.99, US). In this highly anticipated new resource, Donahue concentrates on the practical problems network managers actually face, rather than the hypothetical situations presented on exams like the CCNA.

"My book is important because all of the major vendors force people to learn impractical or useless information for their certification exams," explains Donahue. "My goal was to write a book that reflected the real world as opposed to what a CCNA had to learn to pass his or her exam."

Accordingly, Network Warrior demystifies the world of routers, switches, and firewalls. Expert solutions for troubleshooting a congested network are provided. The book also presents strategies about when to upgrade and why. Along the way, readers gain a historical perspective of various networking features.

Other topics include:

  • The types of networks now in use--LANs, WANs, MANs and CANs
  • Auto-negotiation, and why it's a common cause of network slowdowns
  • Telecom nomenclature, and why it's different from the data world
  • Firewall theory, design, and configuration, using Cisco PIX firewalls
  • Designing route maps and access lists in Cisco devices
  • Planning and deploying a network
  • Using change control to manage your network as it grows
  • Selling your ideas to management
  • IP design and subnetting made easy
  • Server load-balancing technology
  • How QoS really works (and what it can and cannot do)
  • T1 and DS3 explained for the networking professional

"My hope is that this book becomes a handbook," says Donahue. "I wrote it as my own handbook and I�ve referenced it many times since I finished writing it."

Network Warrior was written for network managers and administrators at every level. Based on Donahue's first-hand experiences, readers will soon learn how to take their own work to the next level.

Gary A. Donahue (GAD) is a working consultant who has been in the computer industry for 25 years as a programmer, mainframe administrator, technical assistance center engineer, network administrator, network architect, and consultant. He has been the director of network infrastructure for a national consulting company, and is the president of his own New Jersey consulting company, GAD Technologies.

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