Last week while speaking at TechTarget's Advanced Enterprise Virtualization seminar, I was asked a question I get quite often - "What book do you recommend if we want to learn more?" The answer to that was easy. The audience consisted pretty much of senior level administrators who were either running or planned to deploy VMware-based virtual environments, so I asked if everyone had purchased a copy of the VMware Infrastructure 3 Advanced Technical Design & Advanced Operations Guide. The attendees were surprised that I didn't mention my own book, but why should I? My virtualization book was published in 2005, so it's a dinosaur in terms of virtualization books. Even back then, I wrote a good virtualization book that covered many platforms, but at the time the best book for ESX environments was the VMware ESX Server: Advanced Technical Design Guide.
I had pre-ordered the VMware Infrastructure 3 Advanced Technical Design and Operations Guide and received my copy from Amazon a few days before my seminar last week. If you're thinking about deploying VMware or are already running VMware Virtual Infrastructure, I consider this book to be a requirement. The authors, Ron Oglesby, Scott Herold, and Mike Laverick are three of the foremost VMware experts in the world. Together, they delivered a highly comprehensive book that takes you from planning and architecture to operations and advanced management. Let's face it, you can find a lot of information online today, so to me the value of a good book is in the information that goes beyond what is already there in a vendor's how-to guide. This book certainly does not disappoint. Of course, some of the book's content is online, like Mike Laverick's excellent how-to on PXE installing ESX, but that's no reason to forgo this treasure. There's a lot to say about having all of your go-to information in one place, and this book is it.
The book weighs in at over 800 pages, and unlike other technical books, size does not equal fluff. The authors are very to-the-point and clear in their explanations, and I'm sure likely struggled with having to draw the line on content. The size is also due to the fact that it is two books (Advanced Technical Design Guide and Advanced Operations Guide) packaged as one. By packaging this way, you're saving money. I wanted to name my favorite chapter, but found this impossible, because all of the chapters contain excellent information. That being said, here's a list of my personal favorites:
Advanced Technical Design Guide
* Chapter 4 - Virtual Center and Cluster Design
* Chapter 5 - Storage
* Chapter 6 - Networking Concepts and Strategies
* Chapter 7 - VMs and VM Selection
* Chapter 8 - Managing the Environment
* Chapter 10 - Recovery and Business Continuity
Advanced Operations Guide
* Chapter 2 - Networking
* Chapter 3 - Storage
* Chapter 10 - VMotion, DRS, and HA
* Chapter 11 - Backup and VMware Consolidated Backup
* Chapter 12 - ESX Command Line Configuration
Each chapter is loaded with tips, tricks, and gotchas founded on real experience. In fact, many of the gotchas that I've run into myself were right there in print, and the authors highlighted a few that I have yet to see. You'll find that having this book is like having an extra VMware consultant on staff. It's that good.
