The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security) [Paperback]

Steven S. Warren (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584503939 | ISBN-13: 978-1584503934 | Publication Date: June 2005 | Edition: 1

VMware is the leading virtual machine software available today and it is the foundation for next generation computing as it allows users to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on the same PC. The VMware Workstation 5.0 Handbook teaches users the nuts and bolts of this powerful program, including how to install and upgrade VMware and use its guest operating systems. It gives administrators and developers everything they need to know in order to use VMware Workstation effectively, including how to configure, run, and troubleshoot virtual machines. Step-by-step tutorials allow users to work with the software as they read, and real-world examples and software screenshots reinforce the tutorials and make understanding this powerful new technology easy. With this book, users will learn all the skills necessary to use VMware effectively in corporate IT infrastructures.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steven S. Warren (Winter Haven, FL) is a Senior Technical Consultant for The Ultimate Software Group. He has written columns for well-known IT Web sites including Techrepublic.com, CNET, and ZDNET, and has published numerous articles. He holds MCDBA, MCSE, MCSA, CCA, CIW-SA, CIW-MA, Network+, and I-Net+ certifications, and was named a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (June 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584503939
• ISBN-13: 978-1584503934
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Useful for beginners, but not much else, September 21, 2005

By 

C. L. Boling (Vancouver, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security) (Paperback)

80% of the book seems to be almost quoted from the VMWare documentation. After a brief intro chapter, it spends another chapter on installation, followed by a walkthrough of the VM UI that, in similar fashion to most of the book, goes about as deep as you would get by taking your mouse and clicking through the menus and looking at their item descriptions.

Very little takes any more depth than what comes with VMWare in the first place. For example, chapter 13 deals with "Performance tuning abd optimization". It spends a paragraph telling you that clicking the debug checkbox turns debug logging on (which the help file tells you too) but doesn't tell you any details about it or when you might want to use it. The "log...progress periodically" option on that dialog is never even mentioned.

The last two chapters on VMWare Workstation have a little more information out of them, though again, most of the "Tricks and Tips" are things that anyone can know from reading the documentation or playing with the UI for a bit.

If your time is precious, you learn well by reading, and you've never used VMWare before, I would recommend this book. If you've used VMWare for a while, you probably already know almost everything in the book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good overview for beginning and intermediate users, October 27, 2005

By 

Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity" (Metro Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security) (Paperback)

Steven S. Warren's VMware Workstation 5 Handbook (VW5H) is a great book for beginning and intermediate VMware Workstation (WS) users. It is well-written, thorough, and informative. Those who are trying to deploy WS for average home, research, or corporate purposes will find their needs met. Those looking for in-depth coverage exceeding VMware's online documentation will be disappointed. Still, I've been using VMware for almost 4 years, and I learned a few new tricks.

VMware's online documentation is excellent. Those seeking to install and operate WS will find most of their needs met reading VMware's free guides. VW5H provides context and problem-solving techniques that one may not acquire from VMware's documentation. For example, a new user may be unaware of the purpose of a product like VMware P2V Assistant. By reading Ch 15 of VW5H, the user will learn how P2V can create virtual machines out of physical systems.

VW5H offered several tips that I found helpful. I had never heard of Vnetsniffer, although the tool dates to at least 2001. I was unaware of the performance counters described in Ch 13. I thought the procedure for turning VMs into Windows services in Ch 16 was also innovative. I liked the Windows command line coverage in Ch 16 and elsewhere.

I would have liked more information on alternatives to WS, to help guide deployment decisions. I concur with an earlier review that uses debugging as an example of a lost opportunity. One can read the VMware documentation to learn about enabling WS debugging. Interpreting sample output would have been helpful in VW5H. Some sort of performance comparison between using VM disks allocated all up front, or those that grow incrementally, would have been appreciated. Ch 12 should have featured a figure to explain the sample network explained at the end of the chapter.

I have not read Rob's Guide To Using VMware by Rob Bastiaansen, but the table of contents for that book seems to satisfy more of my requirements for a book on VMware. If you focus is solely WS and you are a beginner or intermediate user, VW5H is for you.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real time saver, November 3, 2005

By 

Niloufer Tamboly - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security) (Paperback)

The VMWare Workstation 5 Handbook (Networking & Security) (Paperback) by Steven S. Warren
ISBN: 1584503939
For someone who does not like to go through a lot of options and help pages to find the answer this book is a real time saver. Most users will find that this book covers all their queries and then some. The author strikes a right balance in satisfying both the dorks and the nerds amongst us with the depth and breath of the topics covered.
VMWare provides excellent online documentation but then why would one buy this book and why is this book so popular? The main reason is that the author has realised that people using VMWare have a very real need to learn to do things fast and be done with the installation and configuration and get on with testing their software in a distributed enviornment.
Steven S. Warren is a Senior Technical Consultant for The Ultimate Software Group and was named a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).
I give this book 5 stars on a scale of 5, 5 being the highest. I strongly recommend this book.
Niloufer Tamboly, CISSP