Illustrated Sna (Wiley Illustrated Network Series)

Rating:
Summary: Learn all about Mark Pataky's personal opinions on SNA...
Review: A technical reference should clearly present facts and examples, leaving the reader to form his or her own opinions and conlusions. This book may as well be used by IBM as propaganda to help promote SNA. It is filled with useless opinions and promotions from the author. If you need affimation that DLSw is the best solution networking has ever seen, then read this book! Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Rating:
Summary: Great introduction for non-specialists.
Review: Im a new generation network guy who had to learn how to integrate SNA with IP networks sort of on the fly. SNA is weird, so it wasn't an easy task. I read this book after having supported SNA networks for a number of months. I would have saved myself a lot of time if I would have read this book first. If your going to get into SNA hardcore, then you probably need to buy some big thick books from IBM..this book is a very general introduction. For people like me however, who have been brought up understanding networks from a layer 3 perspective, and just need to know enough to integrate existing SNA networks with IP rollouts, this book is perfect. The book discusses the history of SNA, and the major steps of its evolution. It gets into SNA addressing techniques and layer 2 protocols (SDLC, LLC2 etc..). It discusses the issues involved when deploying SNA over wide area networks. This is especially important because I have found that a number of Network Architechs don't really understand what advantages DLSw is and isn't giving you. The book does outline SNA data flows, but you will probably want to read rfc 1434 to supplement this (its a short one), more importantly, it discusses the different stages of sessions establishment, the PU and LU session (you will want to understand this particularly when dealing with DLSw). Finally it highlights some DLSw configuration parameters. This book as of date is the only book on networking Ive ever read cover to cover.

Rating:
Summary: Great introduction for non-specialists.
Review: Im a new generation network guy who had to learn how to integrate SNA with IP networks sort of on the fly. SNA is weird, so it wasn't an easy task. I read this book after having supported SNA networks for a number of months. I would have saved myself a lot of time if I would have read this book first. If your going to get into SNA hardcore, then you probably need to buy some big thick books from IBM..this book is a very general introduction. For people like me however, who have been brought up understanding networks from a layer 3 perspective, and just need to know enough to integrate existing SNA networks with IP rollouts, this book is perfect. The book discusses the history of SNA, and the major steps of its evolution. It gets into SNA addressing techniques and layer 2 protocols (SDLC, LLC2 etc..). It discusses the issues involved when deploying SNA over wide area networks. This is especially important because I have found that a number of Network Architechs don't really understand what advantages DLSw is and isn't giving you. The book does outline SNA data flows, but you will probably want to read rfc 1434 to supplement this (its a short one), more importantly, it discusses the different stages of sessions establishment, the PU and LU session (you will want to understand this particularly when dealing with DLSw). Finally it highlights some DLSw configuration parameters. This book as of date is the only book on networking Ive ever read cover to cover.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overivew of SNA and DLSw
Review: Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of computer professionals in the world: "client/server guys" and "mainframe guys." There are a lot of the latter who are trying to learn what they need to become the former, but there aren't very many client/server guys trying to learn about mainframes.

However, for those few (like me) who started out in client/server and have only the vaguest notion of what the mainframe environment is like, it can be very frustrating to find good books that can help you. Most of the mainframe references you find in bookstores are geared toward existing mainframe guys.

"Illustrated SNA" is the best introductory book to the mainframe environment that I've seen. Naturally it focuses on the networking aspects of mainframes over all other facets, but it necessarily touches on those other facets and in the process defines all those freakish acronyms you see in the want ads: CICS, MVS, VTAM, etc.

The book is disarmingly short, but the content-to-verbiage ratio is pretty high. It's very understandable and littered with powerpoint slides (also included on CD). The CD is useless, to be honest, but the rest of the book is worth the price just so you can crank your mainframe comfort level up a few notches.

Rating:
Summary: good overview; lacks APPC
Review: The title is right on. The illustrations are very helpful, and the book is easy to understand. It is, however, more of an overview than a text. Also, it incredibly has absolutely no mention of APPC (Advanced Program to Program Communication).

Rating:
Summary: Pretty bad
Review: This is probably the worst networking book I've ever read. It's also the most pretentious networking book I've ever read. Save yourself a lot of money, go to the IBM website and download a couple of their manuals for free; you may actually learn something about SNA.