During the course of a typical day—if there is such a thing as a “typical” day—network consultants are bombarded with questions coming from all directions. These questions come from customers, peers, sales and marketing teams, network administrators, and so on, and the list seems neverending at times. Network consultants, designers, engineers, managers, and so on have developed an instinct over time and sometimes cringe or develop other nervous habits when the phrase, “You got a second?” is uttered.

To the uninitiated, this question seems innocent enough, but after a while they, too, develop the same cringe or nervous habit.

The reason is this: Networks are like snowflakes; no two are alike. This is the challenge that network consultants, engineers, managers, designers, and anyone else involved with a telecommunications network must face every day. The question “You got a second?” is often followed by the question's recipient researching through several volumes, Web sites, old e-mails, rolodexes of contacts, and so on in an effort to find the answer to that seemingly simple question. During this flurry of books, paper, Web sites, phone calls, and voice mails, the questioner sometimes says to himself, “I thought this person knew it all” or “What's the big deal?”

The big deal is that the telecommunications industry is in such a dynamic and fluid state that it is nearly impossible for someone to keep up with everything, leaving many individuals to become Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs, in one or several technologies. This specialization does not relieve the consultant (or whoever was the recipient of the “seemingly simple” question) of the responsibility of knowing something about everything. A “Jack of all trades, master of none” mentality begins to develop.

Not only do network consultants, engineers, managers, and so on face the everyday challenging task of managing and maintaining these networks and answering questions about past, current, or future (proposed) technology, but consultants and others must also document, review, analyze, and find ways to improve these networks. They are often looking for ways to cut costs, while maintaining the same, if not better, level of service to their users. Before a consultant or another can review a network, he must have a clear understanding of the network in question, whether it is a current or planned implementation. Just as no two networks are alike, documentation of such networks follows suit. Often networks are not so much documented as they are drawn—on white boards or with drawing software packages—with little supporting configuration information.

In the course of a single morning, I was the recipient of such questions including, but not limited to the following: Ethernet standards and limitations, Voice over Frame Relay, differences between and history of AMI and B8ZS line coding (and limitations of AMI), FRASI, and review of a customer's network document—and all this before lunch!

One of the questions asked was: “Isn't there a book or Web site that has all of this stuff?” That was the most poignant question of all, and one that caught my attention above all the others.

There was no single resource that I could read through and get what I needed, quickly and easily. Just as there was no single resource that helped me prepare documentation for my customer's current or proposed networks.

This same question further spawned an idea, an idea that was kicked around for a few years that resulted from my suffering through a “typical” day. I began to gather these books, Web sites, and old e-mails. I further created some document templates, and amassed what amounted to a labor of love: a collection of this information that, although organized in a fashion that would make Dewey Decimal cry, was still useful and served as my everyday resource.

What you hold in your hands, and can view on the Internet at www.ciscopress.com/1587050390, is the result of that fateful question “Isn't there a book or Web site that has all of this stuff?”