Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 24seven

Rating:
Summary: Very informative and "real".
Review: I'm kind of surprised no one has reviewed this book yet, given that most Sybex publications are well written and this one appears to be a strong seller. So, here I go... I was recently thrust into the world of Exchange and needed something to get me up to speed. I have had a little experience with Exchange 5.5 but nothing that I think would qualify me as an Exchange administrator. Although, I have over 4 years of experience working with sendmail and qmail. I would not recommend this book to beginners (you should have a good understanding of email systems before you read this).

The above Editorial Review does a good job of summing up what this book covers, so rather than bore you with details again just read it. I find the most value of this book in the real world examples that it provides. You will also find plenty of references to KB articles, websites and tools that will help you manage Exchange 2003. The author also has a website with a lot of helpful information.

As with all technical books that I've read, there are typos and sometimes (rarely) the info just doesn't seem to make sense or agree with examples.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to more effectively manage, fine tune and troubleshoot Exchange 2003. On the other hand, do not buy this book if you are looking for information on migrating to Exchange 2003, it's not covered. I feel much more confidant about supporting Exchange 2003 after reading this book.


Rating:
Summary: No Doubt the Best E2k3 book
Review: This book will not bore you about some philosophy, nor will it cover exam questions for passing some test. I've searched countless books, and this book had material in it that was exactly related to what I was doing at work. It is very uncanny, in that many situations co-workers and I have opened the book, and magically the page we first looked at was exactly related to our project on hand. Some of these choice topics are mail aliases (or Exchanges equivalent of them), de-fragmentation, journaling, scripting, spam/virus filter options, enigma of message queues, Outlook 2003 features, etc. The material is so accurate, we've even found tidbits on tweaking the registry or Active Directory LDAP data to configure changes. There's excellent coverage of OWA, securing message content, performance, disaster recovery practices, and more.

I can sum it up in that this book is very no non-sense practical, insightful, empowering, and well written. It covers not only the scope of Exchange, but also real world problems and solutions, relating to and around Exchange 2003.