Ordinarily I have a special black place in my heart for books written by more than two authors. And when Special Edition: Using Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server--penned by no less than 21 contributors--landed on my desk, my initial thought was, unsurprisingly, "Oh, No!"
My reasons for being so skeptical of such books are usually related to the way in which the content is fashioned. All too often, multiple-authored books suffer from a lack of flow and too much repetition. In this case, however, I changed my mind as I leafed through the great opus. I noticed some occasional repetition creeping into the book, particularly during discussion of the MS Mail Connector in chapters 16 and 34, where figures 16.1 and 34.2 are inadvertently duplicated (apart from the typo in 16.1). And the flow is a bit sticky in places. But apart from that Kent Joshi, the lead author, and his team have done a good job of hammering out a comprehensive book.
Weighing in at some 1119 pages and 41 chapters, one could hardly label the hefty book as the "Calista Flockhart" of the Exchange 2000 booklist. I half expected this book to have very many space-filling screenshots, but to my surprise there was no such problem. The book has its fair share of screenshots, all appropriate and relevant. But on too many occasions the screenshots are reduced to a size that makes them difficult to read--at least for the myopic eyes of this reviewer.
Given that Special Edition: Using Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server was published in September 2000, it was a display of perfect timing that its publication coincided, more or less, with the release of Exchange 2000 itself. Of course, books have a production cycle to undergo and because of this, some of the references in the book relate to release candidate versions of Exchange. There are some discrepancies: a few screenshots that have been superseded and a handful of comments that are no longer appropriate, but on the whole the integrity of the content is not compromised.
The book is split into eight major sections. Theres a useful introduction to Exchange 2000 and relevant Windows 2000 key concepts in the first part of the book before it really starts to pick up some speed in the second part, which focuses on planning and installing Exchange 2000. The early pages in this part of the book disappointed me a little, because I think a good description of the underlying Windows 2000 requirements for Exchange would have been beneficial. As it happens, theres barely a mention of "Forestprep" and "Domainprep" and what they mean to Exchange 2000. While the following chapters offer some good step-by-step "how-to" descriptions for configuring mailboxes, storage groups, Connection Agreements, and so on, I found the descriptions of what was really going on behind the scenes in terms of architecture and connectivity to be a bit light, despite some reassuringly familiar graphics. This part of the book could definitely have been improved by explaining some of the "whys" rather than just the "whats."
Part 3 of the book did a fine job of describing good practices for system management, backup and restore, and security. And in particular, the book did well to keep on track and dive down to explain some of the basics of Windows groups and trust relationships. The mid-section of the book draws to a close with comprehensive coverage of Exchange and its Internet focus, but not before a considerable discussion on Outlook 2000, Outlook Web Access, and advice on Digital Dashboards. Its all riveting stuff, of course; but for my liking, a little bit distracting from what the title of the book suggests.
The book deals quickly with migration from Exchange 5.5 but devotes a good deal of attention to migration and coexistence with other messaging products such Microsoft Mail, cc:Mail, Groupwise, and other Internet-style mail systems. In this respect, it is only rendered incomplete by omitting Lotus Notes. Moving into new territory, the authors describe some of the new groupware functionality that has arrived on the scene with Exchange 2000, specifically Conferencing and Instant Messaging. Although offering a good description of these newcomers, this part of the book didnt really focus on the deployment aspects of these technologies and I believe this section would have been much more useful if it had.
The book draws to a close with brief discussion of third-party technologies with which you might consider complementing Exchange 2000, a mention of some consulting services, and then were off into a discussion of ways to extend Exchange 2000 with primarily an overview of Outlook forms and Collaboration Data Objects.
Okay, so did I like the book? Well, yes, I did. Did I think it was useful? Yes to that, too. But the book tries to cover a lot of material. Too many pages are devoted to discussing content that would be better discussed in a different book. And in highlighting peripheral topics, attention is drawn away from what the book should really be focusing on: Theres little discussion on the management of public folders, for example. But with its comprehensive coverage of Windows and Exchange, Special Edition: Using Exchange 2000 Server offers a useful reference for everyone with an interest in deploying an Exchange 2000 environment--as much for the newcomer as for the experienced.
Special Edition: Using Exchange 2000 Server
Author: Kent Joshi, et al
Publisher: Que
Published: September 2000
ISBN: 078972278X
1119 pages
$49.99