This book is a resource for network architects who must create solutions for emerging network environments in enterprise data centers. You'll find information on how to leverage Sun Open Network Environment (Sun ONE) technologies to create Services on Demand solutions as well as technical details about the networking internals. The information presented here is based on actual network engineering experience that includes network product development and real world customer experiences. The focus of this book is limited to the design of network architectures that support Web services-based multi-tier architectures. However, it covers everything from the edge data center switch to the server network protocol stacks.

Deepak Kakadia is a staff engineer, network architect at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Menlo Park, California. He has been with Sun for seven years He worked previously at Corona Networks as principal engineer in the Network Management Systems group; at Digital Equipment Corp, where he worked on DEC OSF/1, and at Nortel Networks (Bell Northern Research) in Ottawa, Canada. He received a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Systems, a Master of Science in Computer Science, and has completed Ph.D. qualifiers and course work in Computer Science. He has filed four patents in the area of Network and Systems Management.

Francesco DiMambro is a staff engineer with Sun Microsystem, Inc. in Newark, California. He has based his career around information technology and digital systems. His most recent experience was in developing the Sun GigaSwift Ethernet device driver. That development project has steered him into the arena of developing drivers for maximum performance. It also gave him valuable insight into the usage of networks in Data Centers, and led him to understand that best performance comes not only from within the system, but from the network configuration surrounding that system. This book provides an opportunity for him to share that insight so that it can be applied to give the best results for a Sun system and the systems it interoperates with within a Data Center network.