Rating: 
Summary: TCP/IP Core Networking Guide Is Pretty Good
Review: This volume provides a very clear review of TCP/IP. Basic concepts are covered in separate chapters from Windows 2000 distinctives. This organization makes the book an excellent learning tool. Students can work through the basic chapters while more experienced readers might go straight to the Windows 2000 features.One of the features that appears throughout the SRK is flowcharts. This can be a helpful method for visualizing the step by step activities of establishing connections, resolving names, etc. This approach is applied in this volume particularly to troubleshooting. I liked having a flowchart and a list of steps to clarify the points covered. Microsoft is emphasizing the use of network analysis through the use of Network Monitor in the SRK. Capture files are frequently included to illustrate TCP/IP functions. A number of new tools for testing and verifying TCP/IP on a Windows 2000 network are covered in the book. The coverage is a little light weight and it is common to be referred to Server Help for more information. It appears to be necessary to review Server Help, the SRK Companion CD, as well as the SRK itself to fully review some tools and features. This sounds worse than it really is however. A chapter is devoted to IPSec. On the one hand an attempt is made to review the material from a basic level to begin educating the industry on an important security option. The chapter also tries to cover the means of making IPSec functional on a network. I wanted more. I was also disappointed with the chapter on Quality of Service. There was too much repetition and important issues were not addressed clearly enough. For instance, not all QOS features can overlap on machines. It was not clear what features can be run together and which must be installed on separate machines to function appropriately. The last chapter in the volume was on SNMP. It was basic and clearly written. Nine Appendixes were included covering everything from the OSI Model to LMHOSTS files. It is a shame this volume will not be more accessible to students as it is really an excellent treatment of TCP/IP.
Rating:
Summary: TCP/IP Core Networking Guide Is Pretty Good
Review: This volume provides a very clear review of TCP/IP. Basic concepts are covered in separate chapters from Windows 2000 distinctives. This organization makes the book an excellent learning tool. Students can work through the basic chapters while more experienced readers might go straight to the Windows 2000 features. One of the features that appears throughout the SRK is flowcharts. This can be a helpful method for visualizing the step by step activities of establishing connections, resolving names, etc. This approach is applied in this volume particularly to troubleshooting. I liked having a flowchart and a list of steps to clarify the points covered. Microsoft is emphasizing the use of network analysis through the use of Network Monitor in the SRK. Capture files are frequently included to illustrate TCP/IP functions. A number of new tools for testing and verifying TCP/IP on a Windows 2000 network are covered in the book. The coverage is a little light weight and it is common to be referred to Server Help for more information. It appears to be necessary to review Server Help, the SRK Companion CD, as well as the SRK itself to fully review some tools and features. This sounds worse than it really is however. A chapter is devoted to IPSec. On the one hand an attempt is made to review the material from a basic level to begin educating the industry on an important security option. The chapter also tries to cover the means of making IPSec functional on a network. I wanted more. I was also disappointed with the chapter on Quality of Service. There was too much repetition and important issues were not addressed clearly enough. For instance, not all QOS features can overlap on machines. It was not clear what features can be run together and which must be installed on separate machines to function appropriately. The last chapter in the volume was on SNMP. It was basic and clearly written. Nine Appendixes were included covering everything from the OSI Model to LMHOSTS files. It is a shame this volume will not be more accessible to students as it is really an excellent treatment of TCP/IP.
Rating: 
Summary: Deployment Planning Guide is OK
Review: Windows 2000 is considerably more feature rich and complex than was NT and the Server Resource Kit reflects this in volume. It was released the same week I took the MOC Accelerated Training for Windows 2000 and when my Instructor made fun of the idea of buying such a large set of books I calculated that I could read through the 7 volumes in 4 months if I read 50 pages daily. After finishing the Deployment Planning Guide I'm about a week ahead of schedule. The Deployment Planning Guide reflects Microsoft's understanding that Windows 2000 must be implemented with thorough planning to achieve the potential it has for supporting an enterprise environment. This volume is a Project Manager's dream. Nearly every planning base has been covered here from identifying the appropriate composition of various teams to task sequencing to checklist templates. The material is so well organized for guiding an implementation project that I am surprised it was not released with a Microsoft Project file and instructions to just add your own dates and stir. The Deployment Planning Guide provides a useful survey of many of the features of Windows 2000. Even after a week of MOC training and reading through the two volumes associated with that class I learned some new things from the Planning Guide about how Win2K works. For people who need to gain an understanding of what the options are and how all the pieces fit together this is an excellent read. For the most part the Planning Guide is clearly and accurately written. A few times terms seemed to be misapplied and the results were confusing. Repetition became annoying as the reader was referred to Server Help or the Unattend.doc on the installation CD for more information too frequently. Chapters 13 and 25 repeat the same material, once to describe automating server installations and then again to describe automating client installations. These problems reflect an obvious effort to make each section self contained but even so the volume is quite readable as an overview of Windows 2000 networking. Check back in about 30 days for my review of the 1500 page Distributed Systems Guide!
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