[CWN-Summit] FYI: Free book on bandwidth optimization

Sascha Meinrath sascha at ucimc.org
Mon Oct 16 21:41:28 CDT 2006


FYI:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Trieste, Italy-- The BMO Book Sprint Team is pleased to announce the
release of the new free book, "How To Accelerate Your Internet: A
practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open
Source Software".  The book was released in October 2006 under a
Creative Commons license, and was written in an effort to help
network architects understand and troubleshoot problems with managing
Internet bandwidth, which often result in unnecessarily high
operational costs in the developing world.

Network connections are very expensive in most parts of the world,
and it is often costly and difficult to add additional network
capacity.  Therefore, effective management and optimization of
bandwidth is crucial.  Research and education benefit significantly
from Internet resources, yet the majority of institutions take little
or no action to manage their bandwidth usage.  This waste results in
high operating costs, slow network connections, and frustrated
network users.

The goal of the book is to provide practical information on how to
gain the largest possible benefit from your connection to the
Internet.  By prioritizing certain kinds of network activity,
reducing the impact of spam and viruses, providing local content
caching, and performing extensive monitoring and analysis of network
usage, Internet consumption can be brought to manageable levels.
This makes it possible to provide equitable access for all users,
even when the available bandwidth is quite small.

But technical solutions only solve part of the problem.  In order to
prioritize network traffic, an organization needs to have a clear
idea of the intended purpose of the network connection, as well as
insight into how the connection is being used.  The book addresses
this complex topic by covering the three major components of
effective bandwidth management:  Effective policy, extensive
monitoring & analysis, and solid network implementation.  In
addition, troubleshooting techniques, advanced performance tuning
tips and tricks, and real-world case studies are also provided.

The Book Sprint began with online correspondence via email, which led
to an initial face-to-face meeting of bandwidth management experts
from around the world in May 2006.  Intense online collaboration
followed over the next few months, which then culminated in the
production of the 300 page printed book, as well as a PDF and HTML
version.  The book was sponsored by the International Network for the
Availability of Scientific Publications (http://inasp.info/), and was
produced in association with the Abdus Salam International Centre for
Theoretical Physics (http://www.ictp.it/), Aidworld (http://
www.aidworld.org/), and Hacker Friendly LLC (http://
hackerfriendly.com/).   By releasing this work under a Creative
Commons license, the Book Sprint Team hopes to disseminate it as
widely as possible, bringing this information into the hands of
people who need it most.

The book can be downloaded for free, or a printed copy may be
purchased at the book's website: http://bwmo.net/

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
Executive Director  *  Principal          *  President
CUWiN              *** The Ethos Group   *** Acorn Active Media
CUWiN.net           *  EthosWireless.com  *  AcornActiveMedia.com


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