 | | |
| SMS 2003 Administrator's Reference: Systems Management Server 2003 | 
| Author: Ron D. Crumbaker
Publisher: Wrox
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $0.87
You Save: $39.12 (98%)
Buy New/Used from $0.87
Avg. Customer Rating:  (4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 802788
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0471749508
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.6068
EAN: 9780471749509
ASIN: 0471749508
Publication Date: November 6, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
- Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 is Microsoft's centralized administration tool that IT departments use to remotely deploy applications, apply security patches, and provide IT hardware and software inventory management and asset control
- Each chapter features a task and an outline for what is to be accomplished, along with the functionality that is required, the tools or scripts that are necessary, and the ideal results
- A common environment is presented throughout the text to allow readers to become familiar with it as they advance through the chapters
- Featured tasks include standardizing and replicating site settings, hardware and software inventory, software metering, reporting software updates, and troubleshooting
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Not technical enough February 6, 2008
Bought this book hoping for an in-depth analysis of SMS 2003. Book is written to simple. Doesn't go into detail on all the aspects of SMS. I realize it says "Reference" in the title, but I was hoping for way more than I got.
 This book is awful--read the Microsoft whitepapers instead December 5, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought this book along with 2 others on SMS 2003: 'SMS 2003 Recipes' and 'Distributing Software with Systems Management Server 2003'. This is definitely the worst of the three. In fact, the other two aren't really about explaining how SMS works, but do as good or better of a job explaining SMS than this book.
Examples of poor writing include use of terms and concepts that aren't explained until chapters later in the book or never at all. For example, the acronym DDR is *never* expanded nor explained.
About 2/3 of the book is screen-shots and walkthroughs of how you setup/configure a feature. Since this book is a relatively short one for a technical book, that leaves *very* little actual content for explaining concepts.
I was also discouraged at some of the walkthrough material. In many cases, the author would list the options, but not explain what each option meant so that you could make an informed decision.
The one bright point of this book is the attention given to 3rd party tools that leverage SMS. However, you can get this same material in several other SMS books, e.g. the 'SMS 2003 Recipes' book has the same material. You can also get this material from online forums.
If you need hand-holding in setting up a simple SMS organization, I suppose this book would be your cup of tea. But I think most folks are looking for concepts, explanation, and value-added content, not hand-holding.
[...]
 Excellent November 9, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Another excellent addition to the resources available for the SMS admin. Especially for a new installation or new sms admins, follow chapters 1-13, to get up and running, and then go to Chap 15 and implement his SMS 2003 Web Remote Tools. Don't be fooled by the fact that there's only a few pages devoted to mentioning this tool; once you have SMS, and the default SMS web reporting site running, adding this virtual web site to your web reporting server is indespensible. It was for me; I'm pretty sure at least some of the raises I've received the last two years were justified in my review by last year: "implementing Ron Crumbaker's Web Console" and this year: "enhancing the web console".
If you are an SMS Administrator, for the most part your work is done behind-the-scenes. If you implement this web console and get your Managers, local technicians, helpdesk, etc. using it--it is a great way to answer that dreaded yearly review question "so, what did you do this year to help the company?"
As with almost any technology-geared guide, there is one thing I noticed that has changed. Microsoft just released (literally, just last Friday) an updated ITMU (Chapter 13), so the .cab file is now called wsusscn2.cab (not wsusscan.cab).
Grab this, the SMS 2003 Recipes from Greg Ramsey/Warren Byle, and lurk on the [...] sms2003 forums, blogs, or email lists, and you'll have your sms installation humming along in no time.
Awesome Book November 7, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an awesome book. It has proven to be an invaluable asset to my team.
|
|
|
Powered by: Dknc, inc. and Amazon.com | | 
For your safety and security, orders are processed through amazon.com
|
|
|
|