Customer Reviews

Learning Exchange Server 2003

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Books teaching you a Server product always seem to fall into one of two categories; the Cram for the MCSE test (in which you get the information needed to pass the test and not really administer the product), or the Mastering style (in which you are stuck with an 800 page book that assumes you already have an environment and are only interested in over-covering the advanced or obscure features). I was pleasantly surprised to find that this title actually provides hand-held walk-thrus for the uninitiated, and continues the education process to cover basics, intermediate and advanced skills.

The author starts the title by ensuring that everyone has the same lab environment by way of an environmental setup walk-thru. This includes not only the Exchange portion itself, but hints and tips on how to minimize the hardware needed and build your environment with mostly trialware so as to keep the costs down for those who are reading the title outside of a corporate environment. From there, time is taken to introduce legacy and modern email protocols and formats in the context of the email client. Once covered you are taken deep inside the Exchange 2003 environment, starting with the service architecture and moving you thru server management, recipient / distribution list management and publishing, private mailbox and public folder health and control, message routing and finally Outlook Web Access. All of these topics are presented without undo references to how it was done in 5.5, which is a pleasant change from so many other titles that attempt the same level of Exchange education. Once you have become comfortable with the Exchange system itself, time is spent teaching you how Exchange is integrated with the parental network. This includes distributed architecture planning, Exchange 5.5 migration (which is separated out as a single chapter and easily skipped if you do not need it), and finally partner services, such as anti-virus and spam control mechanisms.

What really sets this title apart, is that time is taken to ensure that the Exchange specific terminology is defined clearly and that you understand what the components are before you find yourself 70 pages in and realizing that what you just read doesn't mean what you thought it did (or if you're like me, you've reached a point where you can no longer just skip over the word pretending that it isn't important). Although covering technical aspects, it is written neither so dryly nor so technical as to put the reader off; the author enjoys the topic and passes the enthusiasm along. If you are looking for a title to teach you to Exchange 2003 administration - pick this up.

Admit it, computer books can be very dry, and all to often, so technical that you have to purchase other resources to understand what the author is talking about. Well, that is not the case in "Learning Exchange Server 2003" by Mr. Boswell. He is able to explain concepts of Exchange in a conversational manner that makes going thru the exercises a breeze. You should be able to go thru all the exercises in one afternoon, and then plan on spending any follow-up time on topics you are unsure of. Mr.. Boswell does a great job of teaching concepts so you actually grasp them. Imagine that!! While some may complain that this book does not go in-depth enough on certain topics, I need to point out that this book is designed for the do-ers and not the philosophers.

When I first started reading this book, I was a bit overwhelmed. Especially while reading the first few pages of chapter 2. Being new to exchange server and never using the product before, and after reading the first few pages of the second chapter, I thought I made a mistake in buying this book.

But as I read more of the chapters, I grew to appreciate the writing style of Mr. Boswell. He explains the most tedious exchange topics in an easily understood manner. He takes you step by step and explains everything in great detail.

If you're looking for a book to pass the MCSE tests, then look further. This book really is geared to truly understanding the product. This book won't give you years of experience in administering an exchange server but it's a great resource for "newbie's" such as me.

Email is one of the core functionalities of a computer network. If those computers are running Microsoft operating systems, then Exchange Server 2003 often handles the mail. Due to the crucial nature of email, the book shows how Microsoft has built up a lot of capabilities into it. The book assumes that you are the sysadmin delegated to setting up and running it.

So there are lengthy but necessary explanations about the message formats. In the header and body. You can see the difference between bodies written in plain text, HTML or Rich Text Format. Though the latter is mostly supported only by Microsoft, and has gained relatively little traction elsewhere. Despite what the book says about RTF, you can often safely ignore it. Just concentrate on understanding the other two.

You will probably have to maintain distribution lists of your local users. The book gives elaborate GUIs built to simplify this work. Much fancier than editing files like /etc/aliases under unix.

The book also teaches a lot about how SMTP is handled by ES2003. Plus, it gives a good discussion about current antispam and antivirus filters. The level of detail about the antispam filters is concise and understandable, and is a fair summary of the main methods currently deployed.

Well written in simple English without a bunch of jargon. I don't think I saw a single instance of the words, "rich" or "robust". Very good book for someone with minimal experience wanting to install Exchange Server for the first time and also an excellent reference guide for those with more experience interested in advanced configurations.

This book is great for beginning Exchange administrators. I've supported Windows Server systems for over 6 years but my only exposure to Exchange has been on the client side. When I needed to start deploying and supporting Exchange servers I looked for a resource that would explain everything I need to know in enough detail to be helpful but not so much detail as to overwhelm me. This book was exactly was I needed.

Pros: Simple to read and understand. Covers the entire Exchange server lifecylce in enough detail to be truly useful; from installation all the way to troubleshooting when things go wrong.

Cons: An unusually high number of mismatched figures (graphics) in the book; sometimes figure 1 and figure 2 are the same thing! Some grammatical issues that once or twice led to a technical inaccuracy.

Conclusion: If you've been working with Exchange enough to know how to configure full-text indexing, work with address lists, or configure OWA, then you'll need something more advanced than this book. But if you have little to no experience with Exchange, this book is for you!

This is probably one of the best and most pleasant technical books I have ever read.
While not going very deep into details is an excellent source for technical references and it covers most basic administrative tasks in an exchange environment.
It even has a tutorial on creating a 2 node exchange cluster using VMWare workstation that is simple to follow and great source for creating a training/testing environment. I have other books in exchange that are much more technical but I find myself going back to this one for help on some issues. It is a must read book for any exchange administrator.

As a seasoned Exchange Admin, I find my self refrencing this book quite a bit. I have read about 60% of the book and find it to be very easy reading to comprehend. Has great examples on how to navigate through the screens and is great for a begginer or novice admin.

I'd thought that I was free to co-author with Bill to write this book, but ... Anyway, Bill is very good as far as W2k and W2k3 o/s are concerned, but he is also very good with Exchange 2k3. More importantly, Bill is very good to bring those complex issues down to earth with plained-English, explained the whole thing with a great sense of humor. Now, looking back, I think it was a good decision for not to get involved in writing this book with Bill in the first place because there is no way I could match his skill.

Very well-done, Bill. I hope I would see the Advanced-Topics on the Exchange 2k3 as well, also written by you, not just installing, performing basic configurations. Bill, I just want to let you know that I have started the time-watch now :)