A well written book

When I first started reading this book, I was a bit overwhelmed. Especially while reading the first few pages of chapter 2. Being new to exchange server and never using the product before, and after reading the first few pages of the second chapter, I thought I made a mistake in buying this book.

But as I read more of the chapters, I grew to appreciate the writing style of Mr. Boswell. He explains the most tedious exchange topics in an easily understood manner. He takes you step by step and explains everything in great detail.

If you're looking for a book to pass the MCSE tests, then look further. This book really is geared to truly understanding the product. This book won't give you years of experience in administering an exchange server but it's a great resource for "newbie's" such as me.

Great Writing = Great Reading Experience

Admit it, computer books can be very dry, and all to often, so technical that you have to purchase other resources to understand what the author is talking about. Well, that is not the case in "Learning Exchange Server 2003" up time on topics you are unsure of. Mr.. Boswell does a great job of teaching concepts so you actually grasp them. Imagine that!! While some may complain that this book does not go in-depth enough on certain topics, I need to point out that this book is designed for the do-ers and not the philosophers.

Your Exchange 2003 Start to Finish Guide

Books teaching you a Server product always seem to fall into one of two categories; the Cram for the MCSE test (in which you get the information needed to pass the test and not really administer the product), or the Mastering style (in which you are stuck with an 800 page book that assumes you already have an environment and are only interested in over-covering the advanced or obscure features). I was pleasantly surprised to find that this title actually provides hand-held walk-thrus for the uninitiated, and continues the education process to cover basics, intermediate and advanced skills.

The author starts the title thru. This includes not only the Exchange portion itself, but hints and tips on how to minimize the hardware needed and build your environment with mostly trialware so as to keep the costs down for those who are reading the title outside of a corporate environment. From there, time is taken to introduce legacy and modern email protocols and formats in the context of the email client. Once covered you are taken deep inside the Exchange 2003 environment, starting with the service architecture and moving you thru server management, recipient / distribution list management and publishing, private mailbox and public folder health and control, message routing and finally Outlook Web Access. All of these topics are presented without undo references to how it was done in 5.5, which is a pleasant change from so many other titles that attempt the same level of Exchange education. Once you have become comfortable with the Exchange system itself, time is spent teaching you how Exchange is integrated with the parental network. This includes distributed architecture planning, Exchange 5.5 migration (which is separated out as a single chapter and easily skipped if you do not need it), and finally partner services, such as anti-virus and spam control mechanisms.

What really sets this title apart, is that time is taken to ensure that the Exchange specific terminology is defined clearly and that you understand what the components are before you find yourself 70 pages in and realizing that what you just read doesn't mean what you thought it did (or if you're like me, you've reached a point where you can no longer just skip over the word pretending that it isn't important). Although covering technical aspects, it is written neither so dryly nor so technical as to put the reader off; the author enjoys the topic and passes the enthusiasm along. If you are looking for a title to teach you to Exchange 2003 administration - pick this up.