Become an expert in TCP/IP networking

In our connected world nothing works without the TCP/IP protocol family. Whether you use a web browser or mail or your favorite social network, a reliable network connection is the base of all this applications. So every network administrator should have a in depth knowledge of this technology. To get this knowledge you can read all RFC (Request for Comments) of the protocols you use which will be not an easy task, or you can read the redbook TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview from IBM.

This redbook is not new, but it is a very valuable resource to learn how the internet works. In this redbook there is not only a in depth description of IP, TCP and UDP, but there are also explanations how the most important Internet application protocols like DHCP, DNS, BOOTP, SMTP, HTTP and so on work. Although the book is from 2006 newer technologies like IPv6 or VoIP have their own chapters too. And the best is, that this book is absolute vendor neutral. You do not have to use IBM products to benefit from this redbook.

So if you are a network administrator or a developer who develop network applications you should read this book.

Holiday reading: TCP Congestion control

Have you ever want to know how TCP shares the bandwith between different connections. TCP has to choose which connections need which amount of bandwith and how to handle the latency requirements of different types of connections. So that your voip call will not become unreliable when you start a large download.  There are different algorithms for this problem for example compound in Windows and cubic in Linux. But which of this algorithms is better for a given scenario in a heavy used network.

Here are my holiday readings regarding this topic:

Comparison of different congestion algorithms

Compound Congestion algorithm in detail

Remy a new high performance TCP algorithm