Customer Reviews

DNS on Windows Server 2003

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is well-written and very easy to read. It covers all the basics of DNS and the specifics around Windows Server 2003 DNS. The AD chapter is a gem!

I have to disagree with reviewer "Santhosh Sivarajan". Just as with the base OS, there weren't huge differences with DNS between 2000 and 2003, but I think this book did a good job in covering the differences. All the major enhancements including conditional forwarding and stub zones were covered in detail. Also, contrary to what Santhosh said, application partitions are covered in depth in the AD chapter.

In short, if you are running Windows Server 2003 DNS, you won't go wrong with this book.

As in-depth as you will get on DNS for Windows 2003. A recent reviewer stated that it's much of the same. Well, much of it really is; and if you''ve been working with DNS for as long as many of us, nothing about its operations should be new to you. The most significant "tweaks" in DNS in the past few years have been done by Microsoft, to support their AD/200x line - those features are detailed quite specifically in this book (it's what this is all about anyway). And with AD continually evolving, chapters such as Managing DNS Programmatically (with WMI completely in mind) should be of utmost importance for the practicing MS administrator (that is, if you've really read the book!)

Simply put, this is the most thorough and complete text on DNS for the Windows Active Directory (Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003) platform; period.
In addition, it covers the basis and "the guts" behind DNS in general irrespective of operating system but of course focuses and drills deep into the application of DNS in the Windows AD NOS. For you UNIX fiends out there, go with its sister book "DNS and BIND" written by the same team.
You can be an absolute novice on DNS or a seasoned systems engineer/administrator and this book will be equally enthralling.
Whether this is your first book on DNS or not, it definitely will be the last one you need to buy...at least until Windows "Longhorn" Server debues in 2007-2008.
And despite one mistaken reviewer's comment: THERE IS FULL COVERAGE of Active Directory Integrated DNS Domain and Forest Zone Application Partitions.
Just buy it,and you will never bat an eye at tackling any DNS issue ever again.

This book is fantastic as are most of the works that Cricket Liu is involved with writing. He is a rare breed in this field in that he can simultaneously be on the cutting edge of the industry and also communicate complex ideas to us mere mortals. I strongly recommend this book to both novices and veteran system engineers/administrators. I've been lucky enough to see the author live twice as he tours the country in his role as VP of Architecture for Infoblox. He is excellent at speaking as well as writing and I recommend you check out his lecturing style as you'll see it is as easy to follow as the concepts he presents in this book. (There are many videos available at [...] on a variety of topics.) I know other authors were involved in the writing of this book and they are great too but I think Cricket is The MAN when it come to all things DNS!

This book gets very indepth about DNS. It's dry and very technical making it a hard and boring read. I don't recommend this book for the newbie. You really should have some general knowledge about the subject before buying this book.

The explanations throughout the book are difficult to follow and can be confusing. It could of been better written with a simplified approach.

After reading this book I now realize how dull DNS really is.

This is the kind of book to read before things go boom, and you end up trying to decode DNS under, shall we say, less than optimal conditions:)

The book doesn't assume much, only that you have some idea about Server 2003 (really, just 2000...they introduce the new features of 2003 in a seamless way that blends the evolving technology together in a way that makes sense).

We all know that DNS and AD are extremely critical pieces of the Windows 2000+ infrastructure, so it's a good idea to know a little bit more about it than the average Corvus albicollis.
Fortunately, this book develops the DNS story in a readable way, with logical organization & topic introduction. There is also quite a bit of hands-on, in the way of configuration and troubleshooting. It makes for a decent lab manual, if you happen to have a domain tree and a couple of DNS servers handy to play with.

4 stars

I find O'Reilly books to be like Cisco's or Apple's books, in that they place a value on being readable, witty, and scrupulously technical. You will understand DNS on Win2K3 if you read this book.

I was already fimilar with DNS from the first issues of this book. But this new issue does cover Microsoft DNS which I believe is excellent.

More ISP and System Admins nowadays are reliaing on MS DNS because it comes free with Microsoft Servers, high performance, it has a text based like Unix DNS, it is easy to maintain and the big reason is that it's easy to pass on the DNS responsibilities to any lower cost IT staff.

I got this book coming from a BIND background and wanting to move to Windows DNS (I do have a valid reason). The first few chapters cover DNS background similar to the BIND book. After that it moves on into how to do things in the Windows world. It uses examples that are straight from the BIND book but done in Windows 2003. There are lots of screen shots and clear explanation. One of the really good things, for those coming from a *nix background, are the chapters on running from a command line and using PERL scripts to manage DNS. Overall it is a great book for anyone running DNS on Windows.

Well written book, it needs to be updated for newer operating systems that are now being used. Good examples and illustrations, the book will be a good review or refresher for those that haven't been around DNS in a while.