Customer Reviews

Selected Papers in Network and System Administration

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If you are looking for anything you can use today, forget this book. It is an odd grouping of out-of-date articles the editors feel represent some sort of historical development; don't waste your money!

Computer Systems Administration has been needed since shortly after the first digital computers were produced. And certainly, there have never been any shortage of SA books for major operating systems. A trend that has continued to this day.

This book offers a different take. It presents SA issues common to many operating systems, from mainframes to PCs. Plus, it puts them in a historical context. Many of these ideas were first discussed at various LISA conferences over the last 20 years, when research ideas start to move into implementations.

A virtue of the book is that it helps to put SA on a good founding as a coherent engineering discipline. Alas, most SAs have little appreciation of the broader scope of what they deal with, beyond the operating systems that they are currently managing. This book may help correct it, if any of those SAs get around to reading it.

It's also a good read, from a career perspective. SAs are certainly aware of Moore's Law and the continually changing hardware and software they deal with. This book helps make clearer ideas that you can carry with you, as your environment changes. Makes you more adaptable. Evolve or die!