Rating: 
Summary: An excellent introduction to MPLS
Review: An excellent intro to MPLS. It covers in the first four chapters the technical reasons to develop such a technology, data (Ipsilon)and control (Cisco Tag Switching) driven IP switching technologies.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 present MPLS standard protocols, QoS under MPLS and Constraint Based Routing for traffic engineering and other applications.
Finally, Chapter 8 covers VPN as a main application of MPLS.
It might be a little outdated now with more MPLS standards and applications has been developed that are not discussed/detailed in the book (such as Multicast support, IP-VPN, VPLS, etc).
Sherif
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Anyone who has had to plow through an MPLS RFC or draft will be immediatley grateful to have this book. Practical examples and meaningful diagrams (ie not just a bunch of "clouds") help the reader gain an intuitive feel of the concepts and mechanisms behind MPLS. Since both authors are Cisco Fellows, I was hoping for more discussion on the Cisco implementation and deployment issues. But, even without that, this book is a great companion to the IETF documents and a definate must-read.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Anyone who has had to plow through an MPLS RFC or draft will be immediatley grateful to have this book. Practical examples and meaningful diagrams (ie not just a bunch of "clouds") help the reader gain an intuitive feel of the concepts and mechanisms behind MPLS. Since both authors are Cisco Fellows, I was hoping for more discussion on the Cisco implementation and deployment issues. But, even without that, this book is a great companion to the IETF documents and a definate must-read.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Anyone who has had to plow through an MPLS RFC or draft will be immediatley grateful to have this book. Practical examples and meaningful diagrams (ie not just a bunch of "clouds") help the reader gain an intuitive feel of the concepts and mechanisms behind MPLS. Since both authors are Cisco Fellows, I was hoping for more discussion on the Cisco implementation and deployment issues. But, even without that, this book is a great companion to the IETF documents and a definate must-read.
Rating:
Summary: Content is good, badly structured/edited
Review: I read this book expecting to gain an understanding of MPLS in the context of hoping to be able to understand the relevant RFCs pertaining to IP routing. In general, given certain weaknesses, the book succeeds. The book is split into eight chapters as follows: 1. Introduction 2. Fundamental Concepts 3. IP Switching 4. Tag Switching 5. MPLS Core Protocols 6. Quality of Service 7. Constraint-based Routeing 8. Virtual Private Networks On the positive side, the limitations of IP-based routing are well explained. The core protocols, namely MPLS itself and the extensions to RSVP are well explained, and the two chapters delaing with QoS and Constraint-based routing are also well explained, and the section explaining Traffic Engineering is excellent. On the negative side, I felt that chapters 3 and 4 dealing with historical antecedants to MPLS were "filler" chapters better located in an appendix. The book has the feel of being rushed out to meet a deadline. The editing is poor, and there is sometimes poor coordination between text and diagrams: in several places in the book a section contains several pages of dense text explaining a technical detail, and then introduces a diagram supporting the concepts just introduced. In other cases, no diagram at all is used to support the concepts, such as the explanation of CSPF in Chapter 7. Some concepts or terms are explained further in the book after they are first introduced, such as the icons used to represent ATM switches and IP routers, also in Chapter 7. There is no tutorial to introduce some networking concepts. It is not reasonable IMO to expect readers to have a basic understanding of ATM and RSVP, and some networking acronyms are not explained in the glossary. A mixture of British and US spelling is used (for example, signalling vs routing). In summary. The book is excellent technically, but is denied a perfect 5-star rating by poor editing and structural layout. Perhaps this is because they the authors didn't use a top-notch publisher? There is no on-line errata listing. Paul Moore
Rating: 
Summary: Wish the book were more technical
Review: I was expecting a lot from this book. It turns out I am a bit disappointed. Some of the materials had already been covered in the author's "IP switching" book. I wish the book covered more technical materials (ex. design, ..etc).
Rating:
Summary: A good book to start with
Review: It consists of consise and well organized contents from all the IETF drafts. However important topics such as LDPs are briefed and not dealt in design point of view. But it teaches you well; what is MPLS?
Rating:
Summary: Good and comprehensive but a too theoretical
Review: The book "MPLS: Technology and Applications" describes the MPLS protocol, some related around it as well as the history of IP/tag switching. It is very obvious that the book is written by two experts that were very much involved in the evolution of IP/tag switching. Almost everything you need to know about MPLS is covered in this book. The book is clearly structured and well organized and kept quite compact. The problems that led to the development of MPLS are very well explained, the introduction and chapter 2, the fundamental concepts, are clear and to the point. The following chapters, describing the two most important proprietary predecessors of MPLS are quite valuable for understanding some of the decisions that led to the definition of MPLS. Unfortunately, the book is too theoretical and only gives an overview of the MPLS technology. Although the text is written quite well, more and better illustrations and diagrams and most of all some examples would help to understand the presented concepts much better. I admire every author that manages to write a book with 200-400 pages, but in this case I wish they would have covered some of the technical aspects, especially in the chapters about the MPLS core protocols and the QoS, in more detail. Overall this is a good book that covers all of the important aspects of MPLS but some of the chapters are too theoretical and hard to understand without any illustrations and examples.
Rating:
Summary: Good and comprehensive but a too theoretical
Review: The book "MPLS: Technology and Applications" describes the MPLS protocol, some related around it as well as the history of IP/tag switching. It is very obvious that the book is written by two experts that were very much involved in the evolution of IP/tag switching. Almost everything you need to know about MPLS is covered in this book. The book is clearly structured and well organized and kept quite compact. The problems that led to the development of MPLS are very well explained, the introduction and chapter 2, the fundamental concepts, are clear and to the point. The following chapters, describing the two most important proprietary predecessors of MPLS are quite valuable for understanding some of the decisions that led to the definition of MPLS. Unfortunately, the book is too theoretical and only gives an overview of the MPLS technology. Although the text is written quite well, more and better illustrations and diagrams and most of all some examples would help to understand the presented concepts much better. I admire every author that manages to write a book with 200-400 pages, but in this case I wish they would have covered some of the technical aspects, especially in the chapters about the MPLS core protocols and the QoS, in more detail. Overall this is a good book that covers all of the important aspects of MPLS but some of the chapters are too theoretical and hard to understand without any illustrations and examples.
Rating:
Summary: Just what the Doctor Ordered
Review: This books is right on target. It covered MPLS from beginning to end and is great for all levels. The authors did a very good job of not delving into vendor specific design or products and RFC-related gory details. This is the only placed that explained most of my questions. This is well worth the time and money. Enjoy!
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