Blueprints for High Availability

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 624 pages
• Published by: Wiley
• Edition: 2nd Edition September 19, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0471430269
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471430261
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Weighs: 2 pounds

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Blueprints for High Availability: Designing Resilient Distributed Systems (Hardcover) High availability is almost like the Holy Grail - believers know it exists, but getting it can be a quest. Not that it's an elusive, impossible-to-achieve objective - it's just expensive and the path to high availability is filled with challenges, blind alleys and the risk of spending money on the wrong things. This book covers every conceivable aspect of high availability, from application recovery to the [Zen] of service level agreements. The emphasis is on the underlying technologies, with a good deal of attention paid to processes and business considerations as well. There are two things that stand out about this book: it is comprehensive and the authors are in-the-trenches technical types who can actually write. It is obvious that the authors have stuggled with and mastered every technology and technique about which they have written. This is a refreshing change from the plethora of technical books written by professional writers who are assigned book projects because they have writing ability, but not necessarily any real technical background. So, in a world that is littered with books with no substance, this gem is definitely worth buying. I am not going to rehash the table of contents, which is readily available on this page - I will say that the authors gave each of the topics excellent treatment on a number of levels. First, they have deleved into the mechanics of each topic, they have shown the strengths and weaknesses of each, and in many cases, have provided anecdotes and real-life stories about their experiences with designing and implementing similar solutions. The anecdotal content follows a pattern: it points out problems and how the authors resolved those problems when they encountered them. These alone make the book invaluable, and increase the credibility of the authors. Who should read this book? Systems engineers and managers. Systems engineers will benefit from the wealth of technical information provided in the book, and will also benefit from the excellent explanations of underlying mechanics of how the various technologies and solution sets work. I am sure that most systems engineers will find the book's many anecdotes to be entertaining reading that imparts valuable information. Managers should read this book because it puts into perspective how various pieces of a high availability solution set fits together. It also provides a dose of reality that might just stop some "suit" from decreeing a technical direction without fully understanding the full set of issues and factors. This book will provide the issues and factors to managers in a readable manner. Comment | | (Report this)