BOOK REVIEW: Network Management: Principles and Practice ( 2nd edition) By Mani Subramanian; Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in ; Rs 525.
There are many excellent text books on networks; very few on network management. Yet in an economy like India with the world’s first growing telecom market -- mobile phones with every other Indian and a national goal of 100 million broadband connections within 3-5 years -- managing networks is a much-in-demand skill. Which is why Prof Mani Subramanian’s book fills a significant gap in learning resources in this area.

Now, a Chair Professor at IIT Madras, Subramanian remains on the adjunct faculty of Georgia Institute of Technology, where he taught full time for many years. Indeed the book flows from the network management programme he initiated at Georgia and has been a standard text on the subject at many American universities, and some 15 other countries. . He has been responsible for driving many of the key specifications pertaining to network management in the Open Systems Interconnecton standard.

The 2nd edition of the his book ( after a gap  of 10 years)  has a beefed up section on broadband and treats fixed wireless and mobile broadband access, and home networks from the management perspective, including new and evolving protocols. Important additions contributed by Prof Timothy Gonsalves ( Chapter 9: Network Management tools and Engineering) and Dr Usha Rani ( Chapter 16: Web/CORBA/XML tools), ensure that the book is as upto date as a print publication can ever be.

If used as a formal course text, Network Management will be welcomed for its academic completeness ( a full set of power point aids are available for instructors peicamp.in/ManiSubramanian/book-details.asp); but I can see the book fulfilling an equally important role, as a quick refresher for network management professionals whose own formal training dates back a few years. In either scenario, here is a book that is a an attractive, professionally rigorous Indian contribution to building and managing better, faster, more robust networks. –
Anand Parthasarathy  April 26 2010