Customer Reviews

Understanding Microsoft Windows 2000 Distributed Services (Developer Technology)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am the author of the book Enterprise JavaBeans, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly). As an author I was impressed with Chappell's ability to communicate very complex concepts with elegance, depth and clarity. David Chappell is clearly one of the best writers in the industry. As a distributed computing architect I found Chappell's coverage of the entire Windows 2000 distributed computing platform to be outstanding. Every architect, developer, and manager worth their salt should own a copy of this book. I give it my highest recommendation -- it's one of the best technical books I have ever read.

Ever since Microsoft launched the DNA initiative, I have all along looked forward to a book that can give a good overview of it. I especially want to know more about Active Directory Services available in Windows 2000. I have bought a book on DNA but was disappointed with the content (not least is the lack of coverage on Windows 2000) and writing style of the authors.

I did not hesitate to buy this book since it is by David Chappell, the author of Understanding ActiveX and OLE, which I bought and read a few years back.

The author shows again that he is a good writer. He knows how to present things in a simple way. For example, in a few pages, he can illustrate the relationship between DNS, LDAP and Active Directory. He leaves the details in later chapters but has enabled you to grasp the essential concepts. Another book on Active Directory Services starts with a lot of history and details of DNS, X.500 and LDAP up front and you end up losing sight of the big picture.

Likewise he has treated other complex subjects like COM and COM+ well. The ample number of diagrams throughout the book really helps the readers to understand the concepts.

I am not a developer but I would also recommend this book to them since it paints a good big picture of DNA. In fact my company is a competitor to Microsoft. I find this book useful as I can find out more about the technology of Microsoft.

David Chappel deserves a standing ovation for this book. As a speaker, author, editor, teacher, consultant and architect I find this author of this book informative, enjoyable, insightful, educating, knowledgeable, and original. If you are trying to figure out how your enterprise architecture fits into Windows 2000 directory services, COM+, Transaction Server, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), etc - then this is your book. If it's not on your shelf, then you are missing a key to unlock the potential of Windows 2000.

This book does exactly what its title says...it provides an overview of all components in Windows 2000 that you would interact with when writing or using distributed services.

I highly recommend this book for its two chapters on security in Windows 2000. It gives a terrific explanation of both private and public key security (something I've been looking for) and talks about how these are implemented in Windows 2000. These two chapters are a treasure for anyone who has to deal with security issues on a project involving W2K.

It also gives a good overview of what Active Directory is as well as COM/DCOM, COM+ and MSMQ. These topics are informative and top level...if you're interested in code and implementation details, there are books dedicated to each of these topics. I think this book serves as a good top-level reference for writing distributed apps with W2K. It helps you get a view of the forest before becoming entrenched in the trees. David Chappell has a way of explaining complicated topics in an easy to read manner while not hiding the important details.

If you want to understand how to develop or architect application software using a component-based, distributed or e-commerce approach to run on Microsoft platforms, then get this book. (We are still waiting for the Linux-Windows battle to pick up and then climax!!!) It is very good value for money. I think it is equally valuable for programmers, architects, managers and consultants/trainers, especially if they are new to these technologies and want to get to grips with them fast without too much hassle.

Mr. Chappell explains what he does very well and his illustrations are clear and practical. It is as comprehensive as any overview can get. The most interesting aspect of Mr. Chappell's approach is that he makes the need for a particular technology, and the concepts and application very clear and puts all of them in context using very lucid examples. It is neither too detailed nor too heavy. It covers the full DNA gamut - Active Directory Services, Security Technologies, COM/DCOM and their latest re-incarnation, COM+ including MTS/DTC, MSMQ, and Web Application services including IIS/CGI/ISAPI/ASP/XML and system management and design-time/development sponsor concerns like concurrency, load-balancing, etc.

After reading this book programmers will be very well prepared to read a Delphi, VB, C++ or similar book with a distributed/e-commerce, component-based software slant to learn how to apply these technologies to the respective development tool. The point is the language-specific distributed software books can get quite difficult without having been through a book like Mr. Chappell's. And there arent that many like it. A similar, but not nearly as lucid or reader-friendly text is Rosemary Rock-Evans' 'DCOM Explained' text. I feel the book's title, 'DCOM Explained' does not quite do justice to the content.

Some reviewers get quite funny - they really get it all wrong when they review a book without due regard for the stated objectives and audience from the back cover or preface. This can be quite misleading - indeed silly!

One last point: if you need to choose a good development environment for distributed/e-commerce, component-based approaches choose Borland's DELPHI. Don't sell yourself short! - simply no compare. Might sound a bit opinionated - in a world where it is said that there no absolutes!! Thats IMHOP, anyway!!

After reading this book if you are a Delphi Developer or architect for a Windows environments then get the following:

I. James Callan's Collaborative Computing with Delphi 3 II. Steve Texeira, Dave Jewell and Steve Troxell's aricles in various issues of The Delphi Magazine on Web/Internet Computing, MTS, COM, DCOM, COM+, MSMQ, SQL using Delphi. III. Carlie Calvert's Delphi 4 Unleashed. IV. Ray Konopka's Developing Custom Delphi 3 Components.

The audience for this book is relatively limited. Administrators will not find it helpful, as it does not demonstrate the installation or set-up of any of the services. Technology managers will probably experience difficulty in understanding the book. Finally, most programmers will be frustrated by its lack of code examples. The target audience is probably the sub-set of programmers who wish to understand the entire scope of Windows 2000 and how it functions. In this regard the book excelled.

The initial chapters covered directory serves and security, followed COM, DCOM, and data access. Up until this point, the book was relatively average. The discussion on Kerbos and password hashing of timestamps was intriguing, but the rest was relatively redundant. However, the remaining chapters on distributed transactions, and COM+ were extremely helpful. The material detailing the two-step-transaction commit process and the functionality of the ObjectContext interfaces was very concise and informative.

Overall, I give this book four stars. Although sections of the book easily qualify for five stars, the weaker chapters and limited audience detracts from the overall score.

Having read Chappell's five star ++ book "Understanding ActiveX and OLE" I was a little disappointed. So many diverse topics. Anyhow compared to the rest of the crowd this is clearly five star. Its enjoyable pretty easy read, technically exact and you learn a lot. The topic is still important. This might change with Microsoft.Net becoming strong, though.

I'm not a computer programmer, and I was not using this book to learn how to code applications. With that out of the way, I do like this book for several reasons. I like the material coverage. It explains Microsoft distributed technologies in a way that a Information Manager can understand. One way that the author does this is by leaving out program code. The code is left out so as to not distract or confuse the overall concepts. I thought the material was sufficiently deep enough to get you to a level that is more than just an overview of these technologies. It is for these reasons that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I will definitely look into more titles from this author.

Like Mr. Chappell's previous book (Understanding ActiveX and OLE, 1996) this newer one is an excellent overview of cornerstone Windows technologies.

This book tells you what MS has in stock for those who needs to build a distributed application(s) or environment. It's not very technical, there is no source code at all, but we are talking about thinking readers, aren't we ? For somebody who needs to _understand_, this is a book of choice. You can't expect a book to include a working code of a bank teller's workplace, can you ? Once you read this book - you are the guy with the tools to do it.

Surprisingly enough this book does not praise MS at all. There is a couple of scary lines like "MS does support standards but it also chooses to improve them", but still it gives a fair view of what MS offers. It does not give you that "look ! we've invented another acronym for the same 20 years old techology !" feeling. Very fair book.

The book is very easy to read and is well laid out. Ten chapters are of only slight dependency to each other. Covers Active Directory, distributed security, COM+, MSMQ, web-based thingies.

Highly recommended.

I am always on the lookout for books that I can give to the younger technicians that I manage. This is the best book I have come across! Very well written and concise. Delivers in a way that can be understood by anyone. I usually give this book (6 so far) to a technician and assign a subject to be researched. Usually the Security or Directory Service chapters. I have them come back and relate what they have learned. On most occasions they have a very good grasp of the subject matter. I then assign a more in-depth book to be used over the long run. A great teaching tool for the beginner or seasoned veteran who wants to cover a new subject.