Learning Windows Server 2003

Are you a beginner to intermediate system administrator? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Jonathan Hassell, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that shows you how Windows Server 2003 and its follow-up release, R2, works and the different ways to administer machines running that operating system. Hassell, begins by providing a very general overview of Windows Server 2003 from Microsoft's approach to its design and packaging and the different versions that are available, to an overview of the features in this release that are new or otherwise improved. Then, the author provides a detailed guide to installing Windows Server 2003 in a variety of different environments. Next, he discusses the basic file and print services built into Windows Server 2003. The author then covers the domain name system, or DNS. He continues by providing a complete guide to the technical potion of Active Directory, including its logical and physical structure, hierarchical components, scalability, and replication. Then, the author introduces you to GP and its structure and operation. Next, he ensures that you are well versed in locking down your systems to protect both your own computers and the Internet community as a whole. The author continues with a discussion of the revamping of IIS. Then, the author covers the .NET Framework services introduced in the IIS revision. Next, he provides a guide to Terminal Services, including an overview from the server administration's perspective and a similar overview from a typical user's point of view. The author then covers the standard networking architecture of the operating system, including addressing and routing issues. He continues by covering windows clustering services. Finally, he discusses the other elements of Windows Server 2003 not covered elsewhere, including the Indexing Service and the Microsoft Message Queue. This most excellent book has step-by-step procedures and discussions of complex concepts such as Active Directory replication, DFS namespaces and replication, network access quarantining, and server clustering. More importantly, if you're a GUI aficionado, within this book, you'll still find everything you're accustomed to.

I have given this book a 4 star rating as a geek friend who helped me set up my business server read it and said it was pretty good. I am an experienced applications programmer with substantial knowledge of networks and the practicalities of server services. I incorrectly thought this book would almost be like a step-by-step for setting up your own server. The description is correct, each chapter does explain in brief detail what that feature is and then goes into detail of how to set it up. HOWEVER at no point does it explain why you would need the feature or what the acronyms used mean or what is achieved after you add that feature. Personally if you already know about servers, understand the terminology and acronyms and have set up many servers before then my geek friend advises this is a great book. If you are a geek but know little about server terminology and are looking for a step by step book on how to set up a server starting with Server 2003 forget it. If you are not a geek you will be unable to read this book at all, it lost me after only a few paragraphs on every chapter. I gave this book away to my friend.

The new 2nd edition of this book has been completely updated for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and release R2, and information on administration using command-line utilities has been added to each chapter. This book is an extremely clear, concise, yet comprehensive guide to the server-specific features of Windows Server 2003 -- particularly features that are new or enhanced compared with Windows Server 2000. Coverage of topics like DNS and clustering, Active Directory and LDAP, Group Policy (with the new Group Policy Management Console) & the IntelliMirror application distribution system, volume shadow copy for automatic backup file versioning, offline files and folders (an improvement on the Windows briefcase), file indexing services, permission levels & security analysis with the new Security Configuration Wizard, IISv6 (greatly improved), the .NET framework, VPNs, Radius, & IPSec, is extremely good. The main focus is on deployment, administration & management tools. This book seems far more useful than the MS Administrator's Pocket Consultant, and the only topics that seem to be omitted are mention of WSH (to go with the added information on command-line utilities), service recovery, and WINS for systems with pre-Windows 2000 legacy clients. Windows SharePoint Services gets only brief mention. The appendix on features likely to be in Longhorn is a good bonus. I would highly recommend this book.

This book is classic O'Reilly, well written and researched, heavy of the expository text and very light on graphics and screenshots. All of the key topics are covered, file and print sharing, active directory, IIS, .NET, VPN, the fundamentals of security, and even clustering. One thing that struck me about this book was how much of it seems to come directly out of the author's experience. For example the security policy coverage is a blend of the straight technical material and practical advice on how good network security can be tailored to find the right balance of security and convenience. It's these practical insights that distinguish this book from just a straight feature review. Certainly an easy buy for anyone doing administration work on Windows Server 2003.

This book is the companion to another recent O'Reilly book, "Securing Windows Server 2003" by Danseglio. That book concentrates on security issues, while Hassell talks more generally about the wide range of sysadmin tasks you can find yourself performing. In these days of Web dominance, one of the crucial tasks you have is to run a web server; Internet Information Services 6, in this case. Over the entire web, it ranks below Apache. But still central to your context, on your machine. Following the usual O'Reilly style, the IIS chapter is pretty succinct. One noteworthy item is that it has a section entitled "Managing Web Services". Hold your horses, mate. It may not do what you think it does. The section actually describes running several long standing web services [note the lower case]. These do not refer to Web Services [sic], which describe programs that use Web Services Description Language or the Business Process Execution Language to aggregate into new types of services. An unfortunate case of terminology overloading. Another item in the book may be attractive. Network Access Quarantine Control. Microsoft claims it is a much securer way for your mobile users to remotely connect to the machine. Currently, there is no version of it for non-Microsoft machines. Anyway, for some of you, it may be worth trying out.