8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive; Meticulous; In Depth; and Worth It., May 29, 2008
As a computing architect/engineer, I have cover-to-cover read many books
over my career. Part of my job is also to write detailed step-by-step
technical documentation for work I have done. With that as preamble, I'd
like to say that this book is extremely well written. You can tell
the author endeavored to give the complete story of the VI3 suite without
sacrificing the deep detail for each component. He succeeded. Not long
before I read Chris McCain's book, I participated in a 5 day (12hrs/day)
deeply intensive VMWare course covering the same VI3 material. I'm not
a fan of crash/boot-camp type courses, but this one was an exceptionally
thorough/good one. Well, you can pretty much replace that intensive
course with the contents of the "Mastering VMware Infrastructure 3"
book and one (and preferably two) servers qualified for ESX use. Almost
every aspect of VI3 that could be neatly partitioned off into its
own chapter and thoroughly treated, was in this book. Chapters either
cover a VI3 component and/or covers a real world best-practice use
of it. There is little hand-waiving in this book; and if you enjoy the
UNIX CLI way of doing things, as I do, you'll also appreciate the
ESX commands that are peppered throughout the book to
complement/supplement the UI screen shots. Job well done. Highly
recommended.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good learning book, December 4, 2008
This is currently the best learning book on the market for VMware, better than the inappropriately named
VMware Certified Professional Test Prep.
This really provides enough information to begin using the product(s) effectively and is what I would provide a staffperson with no knowledge of VMware. I appreciate that it is a softcover book, making it much easier to read for me.
The only rub here is that VMware has excellent documentation of their own. A person reading only the documentation would have more pages to read, but would come away with a higher level of knowledge. I mentioned this is the book I would use to get someone up to speed, but if their goal was to pass the VCP test, I would direct them directly to the documentation. There's really no need to read anything else.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book but the text is too small., December 1, 2008
I've taken the VI3 course twice and this book goes into greater detail than the vendor course does. The author gives real world applications to many of the issues that VMWare administrators would face. He also presents more detailed explanations of ancilliary subjects such as SANs, command line functions and planning scenarios than you would find by attending the course.
However, the text is a little on the small side. Not enough to be much of a bother when going through the book generally, but trying to read the text in most of the screen shots without a magnifying glass is so difficult that I found myself ignoring the examples he gives. That's why I gave only four stars.
As far as the writing is concerned, I feel that the subject matter is right in line with the knowledge and skills that I know the author possesses. He has a distinct ability to explain a sometimes difficult subject in such a way that even those who are marginally acquainted with VMWare will be able to understand.
Great book, Chris! I just wish I could read it all without straining these middle-aged eyes.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
