Customer Reviews

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-298): Designing Security for a Microsoft® Windows Server(TM) 2003 Network

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The purpose of this book is not to teach you the technical aspects of security in Active Directory, rather to teach you best security practices in use and deployment of this technology. The 70-298 exam should be one of the last you on the MCSE track. Microsoft assumes that you have already taken your workstation and core 4 exams by the time you get to this one.

That said, the book is helpful but not comprehensive, in helping you prepare for this exam from a CONCEPTUAL, not technical perspective.

Unlike some of the other opinions that have been written regarding this book, I found it highly useful and would certainly recommend it to anyone who does not just want bare memorization material for an exam, but truly desires to learn about Micosoft security.

I have three MCSE's, and I have just obtained my MCSE: Security on Server 2003; and, I will keep this book for continued professional reference.

Usually, i really like the training books of MSPress for Windows Server 2003 - But this one is an exeption.

The Problem with this book was, after i read a chapter, i knew exactly as much as before. This is not because i am a security-guru (really i'm not) , it is because of the bad writing style. Sometimes it isn't really clear what the writer wants to say with the lessons and if he takes the reader serious.

Another Problem with this book, it is full of so called "considerations" and "guidelines" instead of a serious, stong security training (most of them are really useless because they are so obvious that you know those even without the book).

I strongly recommend to do not use this Book for 70-298 Training, even if you are a fan of the MSPress series. It's not worth the money.

Although I feel a one-ness with a Network Engineer that wears orange toe socks (I have ones with squirrels on the end which I have also worn at the airport much to security's chagrin), I can't help but feel that the twenty-something self-taught demographic (the bulk of our upcoming network engineers) will desire something more from this book.

The technical aspects are less than easy to follow, whereas the theory is sound but somewhat disorganized. Overall, the book is a review of what I know from the core MCSE tests and a double-check on my security common sense.

On the other hand - I can't say how it could be written better, Security is a learned skill, and taught best in the wild. Therefore I recommend this book - at a minimum you will get an impressive asterisk next to your MCSE on your resume and at best you'll get an insight into security on a Windows network.

To all, this is my last exam for MCSE status. I purchased all the Microsoft Press books as preparation and coupled with my experience, it has sufficed.

I did complete reading this book, however this book is poorly written. The author spends a entire chapters speaking in generalities and leaves how to design security and remediate security risks to your own judgment.

Wait, I take some of that back. The author does use some specification in the book and refers to all administrators, users and clients as female. Not that it matters, but I prefer the past books where they were androgynous.

Since this is my last exam I purchased other materials. I highly recommend purchasing CBT Nugget videos as it thoroughly explains security design and it's implementation.

This book was essential for me as a reference for an MCSE boot camp. It is now part of my reference library. Will answer many questions that pop up during the study process.

No offense to Roberta but this book was absolute torture to read. I guess some people who really love abstract security concepts would eat this up but as an IT generalist it was not my cup of tea. The author spends more time trying to come off as a walking thesaurus than providing parallels in the technology this book is supposed to cover. For the most part, the concepts here are very general and you may wonder if you're even reading about Windows Server 2003. Despite that, once you cut through the vocabulary-touting fluff, the strategies are of course helpful for the security focus of this exam.

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-298): Designing Security for a Microsoft® Windows Server(TM) 2003 Network (Training Kit)

This is the ultimate resource for training for your certification and for reference after you are certified. I recommend this to all those who want to understand the complex process of designing network security.

The MS Training Kit books seem to get a bad rap beacause they don't substitute hands-on experience with spoon fed answers for the exams. Most of them however are useful long after the exam is over and this one is no execption. This book takes a dry subject like security and makes it easy to sit through a study session with it's relavent and readable content. I will recommend this book to other :Security candidates in the future.

This book does an atrocious job of preparing you for the 70-298 exam. There are entire topics missing and tons of wordy fluff that seem intended to merely fill pages and make this book heavy. It's practicaly worthless as an exam prep tool. Besides that, it's absolutely boring. I guarantee you won't make it past the first two chapters without snoozing. You're much better off merely browsing Microsoft TechNet for free.