The practical guide to building resilient and highly available IP networks

• Learn from an all-in-one introduction to new features and developments in building a resilient IP network
• Enable your organization to meet internal service-level agreements (SLAs) for mission-critical resources
• Understand how a resilient IP network can help in delivering mission-critical information such as video and voice services
• Work with configuration examples that are based on real-world issues and customer requirements
• Get tips and best practices from field personnel who have worked on some of the largest networks with stringent uptime requirements and SLAs

More companies are building networks with the intention of using them to conduct business. Because the network has become such a strategic business tool, its availability is of utmost importance to companies and their service providers. The challenges for the professionals responsible for these networks include ensuring that the network remains up all the time, keeping abreast of the latest technologies that help maintain uptime, and reacting to ever-increasing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Building Resilient IP Networks helps you meet those challenges. This practical guide to building highly available IP networks captures the essence of technologies that contribute to the uptime of networks. You gain a clear understanding of how to achieve network availability through the use of tools, design strategy, and Cisco IOS® Software.

With Building Resilient IP Networks, you examine misconceptions about five-nines availability and learn to focus your attention on the real issues: appreciating the limitations of the protocols, understanding what has been done to improve them, and keeping abreast of those changes. Building Resilient IP Networks highlights the importance of having a modular approach to building an IP network and, most important, illustrates how a modular design contributes to a resilient network. You learn how an IP network can be broken down to various modules and how these modules interconnect with one another. Then you explore new network resiliency features that have been developed recently, categorized with respect to the design modules.

Building Resilient IP Networks is relevant to both enterprise and service provider customers of all sizes. Regardless of whether the network connects to the Internet, fortifying IP networks for maximum uptime and prevention of attacks is mandatory for anyone's business.

This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press®, which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.