A new breed of engineer is developing in our contemporary society. These engineers are concerned with communications and computers, economics and regulation. These new engineers apply themselves to data-to its pack aging, transmission, and protection. They are data engineers. Formal curricula do not yet exist for their dedicated development. Rather they learn most of their tools "on the job" and their roots are in computer engineering, communications engineering, and applied mathe matics. There is a need to draw relevant material together and present it so that those who wish to become data engineers can do so, for the betterment of themselves, their employer, their country, and, ultimately, the world-for we share the belief that the most effective tool for world peace and stability is neither politics nor armaments, but rather the open and timely exchange of information. This book has been written with that goal in mind. Today numerous signs encourage us to expect broader information exchange in the years to come. The movement toward a true Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is perhaps the clearest of these. Also, the development offormal protocol layers reflects both a great deal of brilliance and compromise and also the desire for a common language among data engineers.
