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Managing Multivendor Networks
Dedication
To my wife, Marlene, my children, Leanne and Sean, and my best pal, Astro.
John Enck
To my wife, Lotus, my son, Shanti, my parents, and to my cousin Marian for
keeping me company over the Internet all the way from Sweden. Dan W. Blacharski
About the Authors
John Enck is a computer and networking professional with over 18 years
of field experience in multivendor environments. He is the author of numerous books
and articles in this field and is currently the Managing Technical Editor for Windows
NT Magazine and a Senior Technical Editor for NEWS/400.
Dan W. Blacharski is a technology and business writer, novelist, and satirist
with several years experience. He has written several articles and books, and currently
works out of his home in Santa Cruz, California.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Elizabeth South of Que, who made this book possible;
Laura Derr of Cardinal Media, who was responsible for getting the authors together
in the first place; and IBM Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Corp.,
Sun Microsystems, and Fore Systems for all the information they provided.
We'd Like to Hear from You!
As part of our continuing effort to produce books of the highest possible quality,
Que would like to hear your comments. To stay competitive, we really want
you, as a computer book reader and user, to let us know what you like or dislike
most about this book or other Que products.
You can mail comments, ideas, or suggestions for improving future editions to
the address below, or send us a fax at (317) 581-4663. For the online inclined, Macmillan
Computer Publishing has a forum on CompuServe (type GO QUEBOOKS at any prompt)
through which our staff and authors are available for questions and comments. The
address of our Internet site is http://www.mcp.com
(World Wide Web).
In addition to exploring our forum, please feel free to contact me personally
to discuss your opinions of this book: I'm 104521,2411 on CompuServe and [email protected] on the Internet.
Thanks in advance--your comments will help us to continue publishing the best
books available on computer topics in today's market.
Carolyn Kiefer Product Development Specialist Que Corporation 201 W. 103rd Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46290 USA
Preface
The New Edition
lot has happened in the computer world since John Enck wrote the first edition
of this book in 1990. The Internet has become wildly popular, which has led to the
suprem-acy of TCP/IP; the mainframe is being slowly replaced (or at least augmented)
by a distributed, client/server architecture; and high-speed technologies, such as
ATM and FDDI, have significantly enhanced the very nature of networking.
John had three goals in writing this book:
- To introduce and define the fundamental network architectures of four key
computer manufacturers. This information gives executive management a sufficient
understanding of the basics for making informed, intelligent decisions about networks
and networking strategies.
- To help technical management and systems personnel begin the cross-training
process. By covering each vendor's systems and networking architectures using
the same orientation and organization, this book gives you a common level of understanding
and facilitates this horizontal training.
- To explore standards and technologies that greatly affect the world of multivendor
networking and data communications. Many of these developments result from third-party
efforts and serve to define a middle ground on which to build multivendor solutions.
In this edition, I have endeavored to supplant Mr. Enck's comprehensive work with
information on some of the latest technologies and to cover some of the changes that
have taken place in the networking industry during the past six years.
Representations Used in this Book
In order to make the text easier to understand, this book adopts several graphical
representations. The following section includes examples of these representations
to help you distinguish among the different elements.
ON THE WEB:This icon and format signal URL addresses for the Internet
and World Wide Web of places that have related products or information, such as the
Que home page at: http:\\www.quecorp.com
NOTE: Notes offer advice or general information related to the current
topic.
CAUTION: TIP: This paragraph format warns the reader of
hazardous procedures (for example, using file transfer to move entire databases).
What About Sidebars?
Sidebars supplement the material in the chapter. Rather than provide specific technological
information that can impact a network's manageability, sidebars offer, for example,
updates on future technology and side discussions of a particular product's impact
on the marketplace.
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All
rights reserved.
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