How to Cheat at Managing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005

Product Description

Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) is a network monitoring tool that provides enterprise-class event and performance management for Windows Server System technologies. MOM's event and performance management tools discover problems before system administrators would ever find them, thereby enabling administrators to lower their costs of operations and simplify management of their Windows Server System infrastructure. MOM can notify system administrators of overloaded processors, depleted memory, or failed network connections affecting their Windows servers long before these problems bother users.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #925475 in Books
* Published on: 2006-02-15
* Format: Illustrated
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 488 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Tony Piltzecker (CISSP, MCSE, CCNA, CCVP, Check Point CCSA, Citrix CCA), is an independent consultant based in Boston, MA. Tony's specialties include network security design, Microsoft operating system and applications architecture, as well as Cisco IP Telephony implementations. Tony's background includes positions as Systems Practice Manager for Presidio Networked Solutions, IT Manager for SynQor Inc, Network Architect for Planning Systems, Inc, and Senior Networking Consultant with Integrated Information Systems. Along with his various certifications, Tony holds a bachelor's degree in business administration.

Customer Reviews

Good book4
i am new to mom, and this book was very helpful to get to learn the product. i do agree with another reviewer who said that the material was probably not enough and the title is a little misleading (although a lot of the publishers books follow this title format), but it did get me started with the product when no other resources were really available.

Not Enough1
This book contains the word 'Cheating' in the title, and the only cheating is how the authors are cheating administrators out of their money. The table of contents for the book looks promising, but there is not enough meat within to make the book worthwhile. After looking through page after page of screen shots on how to install MOM 2005, there is hardly any explanation on how to configure the product. The only mention of discovery rules is made at the end of the installation section, and then it is only in reference to the 'Install/Uninstall Wizard'. If you want to control the agent installation and fine-tune the management servers, there is absolutely no discussion on configuring Agent properties, Management Server properties or any of the global settings. Let alone how to override globals settings at the server or agent level. Advanced configuration options such as configuring a multihomed agent and cross-management group communication using the MCF and MMPC are non-existent. I had hoped that the chapters on managing services such as Exchange and SQL would contain quality information, but alas, they are only rehashed discussions of the information you can read within each management pack's configuration guide.

Nice but not well organized3
As another reviewer noted it is nice to finally have some MOM 2005 books available. Since MOM itself has been around for a quite a while now its really amazing to think that there have been so few books published about it. For me this is the first MOM book I've had a chance to read so I cannot compare it against others unfortunately.

Let me start off by saying I like the topics covered in this book. It covers some very specific and practical topics such as how to use the Exchange, SQL, AD, and the HP/Dell server management packs (MPs). I think this is great because these are probably the MPs that most people using MOM are going to want to install first. It also covers troubleshooting and backup procedures fairly well.

One really nice feature of the book is the FAQs listed at the end of the chapters. The author usually has 10-15 questions at the end of very chapter that reflect common questions he has received in the real world. These are very common questions that someone new to MOM would probably ask and the author's answers seem reasonable to me.

Another nice feature are the Shortcuts and Independent Advice bubbles the author sprinkles throughout the book. These little blurbs cover alot of the author's real world experience and help the reader to do things more efficiently.

Where I think this book struggles is with organization and detail. The book is poorly laid out in my opinion because the author places some of the more advanced topics early on in the book. He also discusses topics and then doesn't finish the discussion until further on in the book. As an example, to me a topic like editing or authoring a MP would be a topic I would expect to find near the end of the book. The author begins discussing this in chapter 5 (less than half way through the book). For a book like this I think most readers are looking for the basics of how do I install MOM, configure it, and get some basic value out of it. While a MOM admin definately might want to know about tweaking or creating his own MPs this is something that comes later down the line after you're pretty comfortable with the product.

The author provides examples sometimes in the book but many of them could use more detail. He also mentions things that he is frequently asked to do in the real world but doesnt provide detailed examples of how these tasks would be accomplished. Given that the book title implies that the book is for people who dont have time to become MOM guru's I would think the author would be showing many many exact procedures for optimizing and tuning MOM.

Overall, this book is a reasonable starter guide for people looking to get up and running on MOM. It's not going to make you an expert but at least it gets you pointed the right direction and answers some of the questions that might be confusing to new MOM users. The book is worth the $25 price Amazon offers but I'm not sure I would pay the full cover price of $40 for it. I give this book 3 *'s because its a decent 1st MOM book but I see plenty of room for improvement.