If your day to day involvement with IP consists only of managing WINS, DNS, DHCP and subnet configurations, then this book is not for you. Don't get me wrong, there are many interesting sections worth reading that go far in introducing administrative aspects of IPv6, and no time is wasted reading them. This title, however, is for those of you who daily get really dirty with IP and want to know everything there is to know about the new version, the differences between the versions, the features and behaviors of IPv6, and the new tools for configuration, management and tracking.
The book starts of with a very brief and concise history of IPv6, and then jumps right into well explained sections on packet structure, addressing, and ICMP. Each of those sections are written clearly and interestingly, make good use of figures to visually illustrate the information being discussed. Once the structure and hardware-related management points have been driven home, the author provides many chapters that serve as an excellent reference guide and will prove useful well after your initial read. Chapters on IPv6 security, QoS, Upper-layer and routing protocols proceed extended reviews and demonstrations of real-life networking design aspects, protocol version interoperability, co-existence configurations, and toped off with platform specific utility demonstrations.
If you are planning on moving your environment to IPv6, increasing your understanding of the technology for more informed decisions, or looking for a reference guide to assist in your current administration of an IPv6 environment, this is the title for you.
