I like the book for the following reasons and many more: -covers both routers & switches -covers the show commands as well as the equivalent SNMP objects -tells me the inside information (e.g.) Which ver of IOS started supporting sub-interfaces, IOS hidden commands -tells me how I can leverage applications like HpOV NNM, MRTG etc

And it tells all this and more in a simple language (e.g.) The chapter on monitoring CPU & Memory resources explains lucidly how one can be proactive about monitoring these 2 key elements.

The chapter on VLAN management is another good example. One of the topics it covers is about monitoring spanning tree topology changes, how you can use community string indexing to get vlan information for each individual vlan

I am certainly not a professional but found this book very informative. The writing was "reader friendly" but, of course, having a computer and being networked certainly are not enough credentials to fully understand the nuances of this book. I highly recommend this book for people "in the business."

I know that this is considered THE mechanics of materials textbook. And paging through it, you can see that the text and figures are very well done, with every effort made to make the material clearly accessible. So in this respect, the book shines. My main objection with this text is its content. Every imaginable method of beam analysis is presented, and the tendency is to treat every stress problem as some sort of beam. Thus if you're a civil engineer designing beams, you'll probably like this book. But if you are a mechanical engineer, responsible for designing mating parts with complex geometries, you'll be sorrily disappointed. Mechanical parts in the real world are not prismatic beams, perfect cylinders, and other utopian forms. They have threads, fillets, holes and other discontinuities that produce stress concentrations -- stress concentrations that have devastating effects in fatigue if not properly accounted for. I know that some will say "Hey, if you want fatigue analysis, get a Machine Design text". But come on, let's be realistic. Many undergrad students will never go on to take such a course, and the fact that well over 90% of real world failures are fatigue failures necessitates that more than 10 pages out of 900 be dedicated to this subject. Also, there is little if any coverage on 3-dimensional stress, plate and shell theory, plasticity, tensors, and a ton of other stuff that is not overly complex, but is used everywhere in the real world. I don't care how "elementary" the book claims to be. If it's over 900 pages, it should cover these important topics. Maybe someday we'll have more practicing engineers writing textbooks -- textbooks that treat real life problems, rather than fictional, academic idealizations.

I bought this book as a supplement to my old school text because an engineer can never have enough good resouces in the working world. I chose it after much research as it was well recommended as THE BOOK to have. I have found it to be an excellent reference book. Most all the homework problems have answers in the back as a check. The publishing and editing qualities are excellent.

I guess I can see some criticism from a mechanical enineers point of view for lack of fatigue failure analysis. But this book is mainly written for the beginning undergraduate for stress and strain analyis. It is by far one of the handiest and most well written books on the subject that I have come across. If you want fatigue life buy a Shigley book. If you want the basic understanding, Timoshenko is wonderful.