Customer Reviews

Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

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

 

 

First I support a web site with additions and corrections to the book. There's lots of information there, based mostly on comments and questions from readers. You can find the site at http://bgerber.com/Ex2003AddCorrect.htm. Page past the hot news section for a numbered list of very specific questions followed by answers.

The comments that have been expressed about my book "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2003" are interesting. They seem to come from two basic types of readers: those that have a hands-on job to do and those focusing on the Exchange Server certification process.

The book is for those who have a hands-on job to do -- install and run Exchange Server. Comments I receive from readers with that task, especially those starting anew with Exchange Server are almost always complementary. They also ask questions to which I usually respond quickly.

Hands-on people looking for a more advanced book on Exchange Server 2003, should read Jim McBee's "Exchange Server 2003 24seven," also from Sybex. I was privileged to work with Jim on this edition of his book and am listed as a contributing author on the cover.

People who are collecting facts for certification tests should turn to the many books on Exchange certification. There isn't time or space in a book the size of mine to deal with every detail of the Exchange system. For example, contrary to a comment by an earlier Amazon reviewer, you can actually upgrade an Exchange 5.5 system to Exchange 2000 or 2003, operate it successfully and ultimately remove 5.5 components without knowing that SRS, the Site Replication Service, participates in Exchange 5.5-Exchange 2000 or 2003 data replication. Certification is valuable, but it can't replace hands-on experience when it comes time to do a real job.

I have successfully planned, installed and supported Exchange systems for a number of medium and large user-base clients for 10 years. I also do Exchange Server security breach forensics. As one with a set of hands-on jobs to do, I have written a book for that sort of person.

I am a network admin for a small company (100 users) that was running Exchange 5.5 on an old server that could not be upgraded. We were also in the middle of a domain migration from NT 4 to 2003, and the old exchange server could not be migrated, as it was the PDC for our old domain. I know what you are thinking, and believe me I was not involved in that.

I used the book to come up with a migration strategy, but had some questions about Public Folder migration that were not addressed in the book. I emailed Barry Gerber (Author) about it, and he responded within 1/2 hour giving me details about the public folder migration. He actually acted as a very valuable resource for me, and his book is informative, although maybe not for someone who is trying to just pass an exam or a complete novice. It is detailed with regards to migration and security, and Barry provides some excellent real-word stories that help understand some of the best practices of top-notch Exchange administrators.

I recommend this book to all who are serious about truly mastering Exchange 2003. I have pulled off the migration with no other books, have implemented an outlook 2003 rollout, and 2003 Outlook Web Access all from this resource, and could not be happier. Neither can my supervisors!

I did NOT like this book for many reasons. I bought it because it was one of 3 first books sold on Amazon related to subject. Completed chapter 18 by now
- The book merely covers very basic aspects of MS Exchange. The rest of topics related to networking poorly explained making me think Mr.Gerber not exactly knows what he is writing about :(
- The way book is written makes me feel that Mr.Gerber is trying to sell me one of his MS Exchange projects however I believe it suppose to provide solid material about MS Exchange 2003 and it does not...
- Could not find any info about author's certification, degree or personal info (i believe that is important), some basic info about company - Barry Gerber's experience in IT industry is still a mystery to me...
- About Sybex. This book cannot belong to the "Mastering(tm)" series as it is strictly targeted for people who have no idea about Xchange. I am very disappointed by the fact Sybex was confusing me and I would reconsider purchasing materials published this company :(
- The book could be shorted to about 300 pages with no harm at all, so much stuff not related to Xchange...

On the other side the author is speaking mostly from personal experience. That obviously has positive impact on readers who might have only some basic theoretical knowledge about MS Xchange. The useful part of material is presented in very simplified form with hundreds of screenshots covering most of basics which is also a good point :)

With my best wishes. There is always a place for improvement
Regards
Paul

This book has generally good easily digestible explanations for Exchange 2003. I really appreciate the informal down-to-Earth style and discussion of a lot of pieces. I was especially happy to see some good coverage of LDAP, IMAP, and POP configuration, which is seldom adequately covered in other Exchange books.

Despite the excellent overview in many areas, I wish the book was more practical in real world situations. It is great to know about key technologies, which makes the book a worthy of perusal, but still we need to implement and deploy this stuff, which unfortunately involves bizarre tweaks and configurations combined with third party tools and maybe even scripting. I just don't get this practical real-world oriented sense from this book.

One area that irked me quite a bit was coverage of security. There is some coverage of securing open insecure technologies like POP and IMAP, but only on the client. In the security chapter, there's a few paragraphs stating that security is a client issue and should not be covered in the scope of the book. I think it is important both to setup the security on the client and the server, so that the clients can use it, and so that potential hackers don't get passwords for domain accounts. The author does attempt to give a short blurb on how to setup SSL, but I found that the instructions did not work. I was probably missing some other pieces, Certificate Authority?

In conclusion, overall decent coverage of Exchange 2003 with good explanations, but one needs more material, perhaps other books in order to put all the pieces together and get the job done.

I bought this book because it was one of the first to be published and was available at the time I needed the information necessary to deploy an upgrade to Exchange 2003.

I found the organization of the book to be poor. The most basic requirements were too sparsely convered. There was not enough information on basic setup. There was not enough information on upgrades and migrations. What information there was in these areas; was poorly explained and difficult to understand.

I've not found this book very helpful as a guide to installing and upgrading to Exchange 2003. Perhaps as I migrate and begin to use some of the more advanced features in Exchange 2003 the book will prove to be more helpful. But, for a network admin with five years of Exchange 5.5 experience looking to get his arms around Exchange 2003 before deploying it; this book was highly disappointing.

I find that the book doesn't agree with the title. It was good for some basic how-to Exchange things, but what I really wanted, was some in-depth instruction on getting the EAS up and running. What I got was VERY VERY basic, and if you run into any problems, you're SOL. It doesn't say anything about working EAS through a firewall, and it kind of blows past it saying that the guy likes using IMAP better. Well I'm sorry, but if I'm supposed to be "mastering" Exchange Server 2003 then I certainly need a bit more than the most rudamentary thing on such a new implement to Ex'03 as EAS.

This book made my head hurt. The ponderous writing style of the author, and his contstant references to Exchange 5.5 (who cares about Exchange 5.5 any longer???), Windows NT, and Windows 2000, made it difficult to actually learn the Exchange 2003 product. This book is about 300 pages of content about Exchange 2003 compressed into 896 pages of backward looking fluff. You are better off reading "Learning Exchange Server", by William Boswell.

This book is great you're green to windows and Exchange. This book is great if you are a Windows 5.5 Admin that wants to upgrade his network. This book is bad if you have any experience with win2k and exchange.

The book constantly compares Exchange 2003 to 5.x and unless you're expecting that or looking for that it can get very irritating. The book also tries to be too broad and explain aspects of Active directory. Entire books are dedicated to Active Directory so naturally everything he has to say is elementary and superficial. Don't get me wrong the book is well written and the writer knows his stuff but can be long winded and frivolous at times.

I recommend you steer clear of this book because in the end, it doesn't know what it wants to be.

Exchange Server 2003 isn't such a big jump from Exchange Server 2000. I thought I could get by with one book-this one-but it turned out not to be true. I can't recommend this except as a reference even then it's lacking.

I would hardly consider this book "Mastering Exchange" but the author does take the time to step you through all the property pages and settings so you at least get a basic idea of what it all means. You will have a solid basic understanding when you are done but you certainly won't be a master by any stretch of the imagination. I found several errors throughout the book specifically related to Windows and networking. The author should stick to Exchange because when the topic shifts to something else, I had my doubts about what I was reading. For instance, I believe the author stated that in an NT 4.0 Domain, if a PDC goes down, the other DC's elect a new one. WHAT!!!! Maybe a browser, but not a PDC. Its been a while since I read the book but I am pretty sure I read that in a side bar. As I said, overall, not bad if you what a basic intro to Exchange 2003. The title should be changed to Exchange 2003 basics.