Computer Networks Fundamentals & Applications RS Rajesh, KS Easwarakumar & R Balasubramanium Vikas Publishing House

Computers and communication are two sides of the same coin and quite a lot has been written about them. But most books, especially the Indian ones, tend to cover this subject in a theoretical and academic manner. Though the book ‘Computer Networks Fundamentals & Applications’ has been written as a textbook for graduate and postgraduate levels, it covers the applications and recent developments in the field of networking as well and assumes little background on the part of readers. The authors are from the academic field, imparting knowledge of computer science in universities.

There are eleven chapters in this book, the first five of which are theoretical and for the benefit of beginners. These cover the basics of computer networks and data communication. It builds up the knowledge base by discussing different types of computer networks as well as network standards like IEEE, OSI, and ISO in detail with comparisons between them, and then proceeds towards concepts, definition, types and components of local area networks.

The rest of the chapters are about the application and recent developments of all types of networks and data communication facilities, and are quite informative. The various technologies discussed are:

• Landline-based: Gigabit and Fast Ethernets, FDDI networks, ISDN and 100VG-Anylan.
• Wireless-based technologies: Cellular mobile radio, wireless access protocol (WAP), Bluetooth, infrared and VSAT.
• Internet-based technologies: TCP/IP, FTP, SMTP, POP, HTML and Java Beans.

Also included are separate chapters on Client Server Computing and Distributed Systems.

The authors have tried to present the latest advances in a simple language, but sometimes the flow gets disturbed and we hope they improve on it in the next edition.