Friday, July 6, 2012

New book: Microsoft Private Cloud Computing

Even though I have mentioned this book before, I want to give it even more exposure since it’s a very good book with much hands on advice and experience.

The book I am talking about is Microsoft Private Cloud Computing written by the best minds of this moment: Aidan Finn, Hans Vredevoort, Patrick Lownds and Damian Flynn.
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I have bought this book (electronic, the Kindle edition) and it’s hard to put away. It’s written in an accessible style and contains some humor as well. The book starts from scratch talking about what exactly a cloud is. And this topic shows the way how the authors think: instead of cooking up definition number xyz of cloud computing they refer to a solid and world wide recognized source: the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). So the authors know when to let the other experts talk and step aside.

From that point on the book focuses more and more on the Private Cloud and the two pillars: App Controller and Virtual Machine Manager. Rapidly they take a deep dive and talk about all the hardware enabling the Private Cloud: storage, networking, servers hosting the VI layer and so on. After that the components App Controller and Virtual Machine Manager are described in all their details along with advices how to make the best of them, combined with the public cloud, Azure.

Verdict:
For my profession I have read many technical books. Some of them were really good but too many of them left me with many unanswered questions. This book however is one of the best I have read until now. I learn a lot from it and many topics are covered in all their details alongside with advices based on real life experiences. It gives you all there is to know about the Private Cloud based on System Center 2012 technology. Whether you have to work with it as a system engineer, sell, design and implement it as a consultant or know about it as an IT manager. Any one involved with the private cloud based on Microsoft technologies (System Center 2012), whether you’re an engineer, consultant or manager, should buy this book.

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