REVIEW:Migrating to Microsoft Exchange 2000

Corporate IT Update, Oct 29, 2001 by Darren Ingram

CORPORATE IT UPDATE-(C)1995-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Upgrading your company-wide e-mail and groupware services to a newer version of a given application should be an easy, quick step shouldn't it? Think again... each new version will boast new features, new connections and be host to new potential problems. If you don't get it right you could be leading yourself in to many, many problems in the future.

What is more, with the pervasive nature of e-mail and groupware nowadays this is one application that you don't want to mess up. At a fairly fast clip the reader is taken through a series of moves to upgrade from versions 4 and 5 of Microsoft Exchange to the latest all-singing, all-dancing offering from Microsoft - Exchange Server 2000. Step one - take a working backup. Step two - take another. Step three... another backup won't hurt and then you can start on step four - read the book, carefully. No skipping sections here if you please.

Under the fictional guise of upgrading a working multi-country Microsoft Exchange system for an airline, the author drives the aspiring upgrader through the 'migration thought process' while examining the new features on offer and the implication of going down a given route. In all (including a good index) 538 pages of good quality advice are offered - without liability, naturally - to the reader to guide them through the complex processes involved in such a task. Obviously this isn't a 'how to' for the Exchange newbie but more of a helping hand, a friendly uncle, for a systems administrator who doesn't want to explain to his boss that he has messed up big time. I believe it hits the mark.

Like so many technical books there will be many similar titles on offer from competing publishers and, yet again, a user's own individual preferences will help the book make the grade or cast it into oblivion. To the reviewer, the easy-going, yet informative style of this book was a great bonus... however to another reader it could the 'tech guide from hell.' I don't think it will but you have to remember 'different strokes for different folks.'

CONCLUSION:A useful helping hand which could possibly save - or enhance - a career. Take a long, hard look at it!

Title:Migrating to Microsoft Exchange 2000 Author:Stan Reiner Published by:Gearhead Press/Wiley (John Wiley & Sons) ISBN:0-471-06116-6 Price:GBP35.95 Reviewer:Darren Ingram

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