Some Technical Books I'm Reading
Published on 14 Apr 2011 · Filed in Review · 730 words (estimated 4 minutes to read)My book reading queue has expanded tremendously over the past few weeks as a flurry of new books—some virtualization-related, some not—have landed in my laptop. I really appreciate the authors and publishers giving me the opportunity to review these books, and I wanted to give you a quick rundown of what I’ve been doing on this front.
NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures
This book was a gift from one of the authors, Ron Fuller (aka @ccie5851 on Twitter). Like all the other books in this list, I’m not done reading it yet, but I have skimmed a couple of the chapters. I don’t know why, but networking fascinates me (almost as much as virtualization). So far, this book has been very informative and well-written, and I’m looking forward to finishing the whole book. Check it out here on Amazon.
VMware ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition
Author Edward Haletky is a well-known and recognized figure in the VMware virtualization space, and the first edition of this book was very good (read my book review of the first edition from April 2008). This book is now in its the second edition and includes content for vSphere 4.1. I haven’t finished reading it yet—my reading backlog is enormous—so I can’t say anything definitively, but I fully expect that it will be as complete and thorough as the first book. As I said in April 2008 about the first edition, readers seeking good reference material for vSphere should consider adding this to their bookshelf (after adding Mastering VMware vSphere 4 first, of course!). Here’s the book’s Amazon listing.
VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference
This is a much-anticipated title by an all-star collection of PowerCLI experts: Alan Renouf, Luc Dekens, Glenn Sizemore, Arnim van Lieshout, and Jonathan Medd. I expect this book will be a huge best-seller for PowerCLI. Just from the limited reading that I’ve been able to do so far, it’s looking like this book will be the definitive reference guide for using PowerCLI with VMware vSphere. Order the book via Amazon here.
VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deep Dive
What more can be said about this book that hasn’t already been said? The authors, Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman, are considered among the top experts on VMware HA and VMware DRS, so having them write a deep dive on these topics is like the ideal opportunity. They definitely deliver a true “deep dive”; there is a wealth of in-depth technical information here. As with all the other titles in this post, I haven’t yet finished reading the whole thing yet, but this is one to keep on your list of virtualization books. Like most of the other books, VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deep Dive is available on Amazon.
OpenVPN 2 Cookbook
I’ve written about OpenVPN, the open source SSL VPN software, a couple of times before (I wrote about a Mac OS X OpenVPN client named Viscosity and about an issue with OpenVPN and mt-daapd). To be perfectly honest, I’m really impressed with OpenVPN and how well it works, and both Viscosity as well as Shimo are good, Mac OS X-native VPN clients (I generally prefer Viscosity, but Shimo is more versatile). So when Packt Publishing contacted me about reviewing a copy of a book titled OpenVPN 2 Cookbook, I was definitely interested. I’m just getting started looking over the book, but it looks like it is a good resource for users interested in getting to know more about OpenVPN. This title is available via Amazon, and the publisher has a sample chapter available online as well.
VMware vSphere Design
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that a book to which I contributed was also recently published. VMware vSphere Design, which I helped author along with Forbes Guthrie and Maish Saidel-Keesing, hit the shelves in mid-March. So far, the reviews have been generally positive, although when the topic is design there are always a few who disagree (and that’s OK). You can pick up VMware vSphere Design via Amazon.
UPDATE: I forgot to add one other book, a networking book, that I’m also working on reading. Sorry Ron, and thanks for the reminder Andy!
Disclaimer: Where applicable, the publishers and/or authors of all of the books listed here provided me with free copies, either physical or electronic.