Customer Reviews

Domino System Administration

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fantastic Domino Admin book. Mine weighs in at 858 pages, but there is no fluff here that you will find in other books. Each chapter gets down to business quickly. He deals with everything you'll have to deal with if you have Domino 5; Replication, Mail Routing, Modem Communications, Agents, Setup Profiles, etc. It's all here. I always suggest to people if they are trying to learn all about a specific topic like Domino they should read at least 2 books to cover all the bases. Look no futher, you've found one of them. I also bought Special Edition Using Lotus Notes and Domino 5 but this book was much better (and much cheaper). If you joined a course to teach you all this you'd pay thousands of dollars. Save your money. Build yourself a second computer with the money you save not taking a course, download the server and clients off Notes.net, load NT or Windows 2000 on it and go through each chapter and play with your test server. You'll learn more than you would in most courses, and you'll have a second computer.

After finding things in this book that I couldn't find in the Lotus yellow books or the IBM red books, this book is the first book I look at when trying to fix a problem with Domino Server or Notes client. Of course this is the ONLY 3rd party book dedicated to R5 System Administration, but it fits well into the position

This book is simply the best book on the market that specializes on Domino Administration for R5. The book is written in a reader-friendly style and covers deeply technical information in an informative, yet approachable style. It gives not only the technical facts, but the pragmatic advice that comes from years of experience.

While the Lotus reference materials may give you choices of A, B, or C, this book recommends a specific choice and gives you the advantages and consequences of your choices. This type of advice is invaluable when it comes to making decisions about how to configure your system.

I've recommended this book to many of my clients and they are all pleased that they invested in it. Get this book.

What can I say? I have been working with Lotus Notes since R4.6. I have always found the Lotus documentation very ambiguous. As a consultant, I have to keep up with the latest versions, so we have been using R5 for about 1 year. I purchased ALL of the Lotus Yellow Books for Admin and Development and still find it hard to get the answers I am looking for. I am preparing some training material for one of our clients and thought I would try this book out rather than sending our clients to the $1,300 per course / per student Sys Admin training. I am ONLY on Chapter 3 of this book (Server install)and already I can say that THIS BOOK ROCKS!. It has answered some questions even I have always had (i.e. page 64 explains how to move a server into an OU if an organization decides to use OU's - I have never seen this in any of the Lotus books). I hope the publisher keeps printing this book because I am recommending it as THE TRAINING GUIDE for all future clients that need to know how to administer a Lotus Domino server! This book is a MUST buy, and beginners to Notes will find this book an INVALUABLE learning Aid. EMIS Technologies, Inc. (http://www.emistech.com)

This has to be the definitive guide for R5 administrators. Everything is in there, and he describes what each topic is, then generates a steop by step on how to go about performing it. Its my bible for R5 admin.

I agree with the the previous review. I am new to Lotus Notes and I found the content easy to read and the step by step instructions are great.

This book, while designed for those with knowledge of Lotus Notes Administration, also caters for those with average knowledge wishing to excel well above average. The book is very well written and easy to understand. If you are looking at becoming just a CLP then this book isn't for you but if you are looking to become a Lotus Notes Administrator then this is the book you need. This is one of those books you actually enjoy reading, although you never want to admit it to yourself. As you go through the chapters you equip yourself with a wealth of knowledge that CAN be utilised in the work place.

The author demonstrates great expertise in Domino System Administration. In addition to advising which choices to make when Domino provides options, he noted many discrepancies between Lotus documentation and the feature set and functionality of R5 as delivered. The book is based upon Domino 5.0 and Kirkland advises when Lotus has promised to resolve specific problems in future releases. He offers a few work arounds and notes when we just have to wait for an update.

Rob Kirkland admits that he struggled with meeting deadlines to finish this book and he brought in several of his friends to write 7 of the 20 chapters in the book. Perhaps being late explains why this book has so many problems with formatting, punctuation, missing words, words that don't fit the context, and mislabeled concepts. I would estimate there are over 300 of these incidents in the book. Most of them are minor but occasionally I found a situation like this, two different features are explained and they are both labeled with the same name. As the reader, you must decide from your understanding which one is which. This material is not meant as an introduction for beginners but I found these glitches challenging at times and imagine it could throw even experienced Notes Administrators.

The writing was clear enough but the organization of the book was such that you frequently had to leave your understanding of a concept open for quite a long time until an explanation was completed in a later chapter. For example, partitioning a server is discussed early but only at the end is the concept explained. Many times early chapters referred to later chapters for a fuller discussion of features. By the time you get to the end the material is covered pretty well but it is clear to me this book needed another draft. The book is a great candidate for a second edition. Not only could the organization of the material be revisited, the wording and formatting problems could be fixed and the issues resolved by Lotus in the latest updates to R5 could be covered.

I look forward to consulting this book again and again in the field. Despite the problems it is full of wise advice and it is clear that Kirkland understands production environments. One of my favorite aspects of the book is the step by step method of being walked through setting up a new server or adding a new server or deleting a server. The impact of making various changes in terms of performance, reliability, and availability is consistently discussed. I thought the coverage of mail services and routing was particularly strong and the coverage of web server features somewhat weak.

Lotus' Yellow Books are fine 'n' dandy--if you have all day to look for the information you need. If you don't, turn to this book. The information is clear and well-written, taking you step-by-step through configuration and issues. For example, not only did it guide you through creating a simple mail-in database for registration ID's, the information was clear enough to be useful to create another such database for another need I had. Straightforward, well-written, good index (the *true* judge of a reference manual). It might not get you certified, but it will sure keep your Domino domain humming.

In a area as wide as that which Notes & Domino covers this book proves to be a very good resource. Full of information for both novice and experienced administrators. Easy to understand language. Straight to the point. A must have for the serious administrator. This is as close as you are going to get to a single point of reference. I highly recommended this book, especially if your budget does not allow for a large library!