Network monitoring is a fundamental technology for network management. Without correct, timely statistics, today’s network management and control tools are nearly useless. This book describes how monitoring can be used to improve network performance, assist in capacity planning, and aid in the software improvement cycle.

This book is well suited to system administrators who are beginning to experience network growth and the associated problems. The text will give these readers an overview of network monitoring and management. Chiu and Sudama correctly suggest that network management is a key ingredient for a properly functioning network. They discuss most of the primary subjects of network monitoring, including the popular protocols SNMP (simple network management protocol) and CMIP (common management information protocol), DEC and IBM management architectures, and some applications of monitoring. This book will be a useful tool for people encountering problems associated with a growing network because it introduces the vocabulary and general architectures used in network management. Programmers writing distributed applications will also benefit from this text. Although it does not cover many implementation details, developers may find it useful to know how their applications will be monitored and how they can incorporate internal monitoring. Chapter 4, in particular, presents some interesting examples of the types of statistics that might be gathered for network management purposes.

This book is not a how-to manual on constructing a network monitor. It is more of an overview of the monitoring aspect of network management. The authors have provided a good bibliography, so newcomers will have plenty of pointers to the literature. The case studies given in chapter 3 are especially interesting. They demonstrate the real usefulness of monitoring technology. The descriptions of SNMP and CMIP in chapter 2 are scant. Readers will probably need to study the recommended reading on these topics. The book would be more useful if it included more comprehensive descriptions of products available today. Such material would have enabled network administrators to gauge their plans based on what is on the market. To note a less technical point, this book does not flow well. The diagrams are all informative, but they are not placed well and they disrupt the flow of the text. Even though the book is good technically, the layout detracts from its value.

In general, this book will be useful to new network administrators, system administrators who find themselves becoming network administrators, and developers of distributed applications. It is concise and well written. The many pointers to more comprehensive literature are valuable. Finally, an underlying but striking message of the book is that we often do not know how our networks are behaving or will behave in the future with new applications. We produce complex systems, then have to look back with monitors to see what we have created. This message is disturbing, since it carries the implication that we may not be producing well-understood, well-planned distributed systems. It may also imply that network technology has leaped ahead of software development methodology.