Customer Reviews

Windows 2000 Performance Guide

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

 

 

Windows 2000 Performance Guide by computer experts Mark Friedman and Odysseas Pentakalos is a comprehensive, "user friendly" reference specifically designed for system administrators. Individual chapters cover processor performance, optimizing applications, multiprocessing, file caches, internet server performance and much more. Solid, closely researched, and illustrated with numerous examples using black-and-white photographs of computer screens to clearly outline the next step to be taken, Windows 2000 Performance Guide is a solid, comprehensive, and enthusiastically recommended core reference title for anyone who depends on Windows 2000 to get the job done.

The performance of today networked operating systems is of paramount importance to the success of applications such as high-volume Web and E-commerce sites and I/O intensive database applications. "Windows 2000 Performance Guide," by Friedman and Pentakalos, must be read by any serious computer professional concerned with the performance of Windows operating systems. The authors have done a superb job of putting into words and pictures the wealth of knowledge they accumulated over the years. The book is extremely well-written, rigorous, easy to read, and covers a wide-range of issues from memory management to file systems, from single disks to disk arrays, from single to multiprocessors, from basic networking to Web servers. This is the definitive guide to Windows 2000 and related operating systems performance.

I bought this book whilst doing performance analysis of an existing data distribution server. On the whole I am very impressed by this book - it covers a very broad range of performance matters (I won't bother listng them - much of the book can be previewed on the publisher's web-site). From a developer's point of view it is a little light on some areas, but these are mainly areas that an administrator doing tuning of an existing system would often not be looking at. For an administrator tuning existing systems it is very good indeed and certainly reminded me to add a couple more bits to my report. It isn't really aimed at developers designing new systems, but I would certainly recommend it to developers who are concerned with performance.

A couple of things that I would have liked to have seen in the book are:
(1) More detailed descriptions of each metric in PerfMon, together with what constitutes a good value and what doesn't.
(2) Details about socket options - how to choose values and what the impact of changing them is.

All in all, very good.

In my role as a Capacity Planning Analyst, this is the book I reach for first whenever I need information about Windows performance, monitoring, architecture, theory and practice. The book is rich in terms of information and experiences in how all these things in aggregate make the circle of life in terms of Windows performance. This is a must read for all who want a greater insight into how Windows works and how it can be measured. It has great insight and well thought out explanations, with experimental backing where applicable. I am looking forward to the next release of his work.

Recently I needed information about how Windows 2000 performs disk caching operations. After having exhausted my patience searching Microsoft's site, and being unable to find the information searching the net with Google, I finally found a reference to this book. The book quickly provided me with the detailed information I was seeking.

The Windows 2000 Performance Guide is the definitive book on its subject. It contains critical information that is often very hard to find, and in some cases simply unavailable, on a wide range of topics. The authors provide in-depth knowledge on everything from disk hardware to arcane operating system issues. Because the source of performance problems is often unclear, the book's breadth of scope is absolutely essential. These days, most computer experts are narrowly focused: it's just too difficult to broadly keep up with everything that is happening. Somehow, the authors of this book are able to offer real insights in many independent fields.

The book provides many real world examples. It also contains many valuable screenshots of performance monitoring tools under various load conditions. The writing is lucid, thoughtful, and offers many valuable insights. Another feature that I liked is the wealth of references the book offers. I found these references to various web sites, shareware tools, academic papers, and other information sources extremely useful.

The Windows 2000 Performance Guide is a must read for anyone interested in computer performance. Unlike so many other books that I've encountered that are merely a rehash of information available elsewhere, this book is a thoughtful, detailed, and thorough inquiry into its subject matter. Bravo!

While it's possible it's helpful to someone somewhere to know 700 pages worth of performance measuring information, beginning at details, and ending at details, what's really needed is a simple flowchart.

If this book somewhere had just a small table saying something about acceptable measured values, and in turn what could be done to change each one, then we'd be getting somewhere. As it is, the book's a mess. The book gives a "starter set" of metrics, but it's on page 110, is six pages long, encompassing probably 100 measurements, and fails to note how the expected results / measurements would be at all connected to controllable factors.

From our perspective, speed was the desired result. It appears using the authors' standpoint and methodology that to buy a new computer would be far more economical than to run all 1200 tests that are poorly explained in this book.

Marc is stellar in his presentation of this difficult subject. If there is only one book in your library on Windows 2000 performance this is the one. Although very technical it is also understandable. Easily 5 stars in every respect.