Data Center Fundamentals

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional for any networking proffesional
Review: Data Center Fundamentals
ISBN - 1587050234
By - Mauricio Arregoces and Maurizio Portolani
Publisher - Cisco Press

As someone who has worked in and help design a couple Data Centers I looked to this book thinking I would find a good reference in design but one which covered much of my own knowledge already. While I wasn't entirely wrong I can honestly say this book holds much more inside it's covers than many much more expensive or comparable books hold combined. Being a `Fundamentals" book it follows true to the nature of not being for the plain interested or uninitiated technical type but then surprised me when I found a majority of the book exceptionally well thought out and explained in ways that even my mother could grasp.

Those interested in learning what high availability really means and entails should read this book and understand it thoroughly. The tips and knowledge one can glean from this book is awesome just for the TCP/IP and network portions of the book and it truly does lead you down the path to large scale success.

While every section of the book is almost a book of it's own (it is an extremely long book) and could likely get sold as such, this book takes head on the task of trying to cram into it every aspect you would need to delve into a world made up of fully redundant server and network architecture.

As a good example, DNS, while reasonably simple and elegant has many facets to it that if improperly configured or understood can be a make or break item in many data centers. Security is yet another aspect that can either help or hurt a company and it's client base. If either of these is something you want to ensure is part of your considerations when building a data center then this is likely a book right up your alley. The Cryptography section is perfect for those looking to help out a bit in their search for a CISSP and the section on layer 2 and layer 3 functions is almost invaluable to anyone in a network administration field.

Lastly the aspect of this book that most astounded me was the depth that it was able to attain in such a short book. With the stress of putting together a book so focused on redundancy it is hard to believe as much foundation material made it into this book as it did. The authors made sure to try to cover every aspect of the underlying technology beneath every higher level solution they proposed.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in networking and server support regardless of being in a true "Data Center".

Rating:
Summary: A lot of Technical Material
Review: This book covers a lot of technical material; it is so broad, very relevant to anyone working with TCP/IP.

I have not read the book in detail, but just by scanning through the book, I have the feeling that this is a book every network professional should have as a reference ... it touches so many issues I met during my process to become CCDP/CCNP.

I believe this is one book a professional will want to look at again and again. At USD 55.00, it is all worth it!!

Wekesa