For a sophisticated view of networking design concepts that goes from lofty to granular in the blink of an eye, Network Design and Case Studies is a sure winner. This mammoth entry in Cisco's growing collection of reference books provides equal parts academic theory and practical application.

The first half of the book deals exclusively with design, starting with an explanation of the three types of networks (campus, wide area, and remote connections). The book outlines the design trends governing those networks today and explains the devices used to create them and their functions, as well as effective ways to integrate the three. The remaining chapters veer off into more specific network types, such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Internet Protocol (IP), and Switched LAN, and the equipment and protocols best suited for those situations.

The second half of this volume is dedicated to real-word problem solving. The 11 "case study" chapters focus on particularly sticky issues — such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) redistribution, reducing Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) traffic in Novell Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) networks, and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) broadcast flooding — and propose configuration solutions to fix them. As usual, this books holds the requisite flood of appendices; however, in this instance the "Reference and Recommended Reading" entry is undoubtedly the most useful.