Data Center Fundamentals

I am pursuing this certification because I work on the IT Helpdesk and part of my job requires that I monitor the hospital's data center, nightly. Although it will probably take me 1 - 2 years to be ready to sit for this certification. Excellent book.

I recently read the title "Data Center Fundamentals", by Mauricio Arregoces and Maurizio Portolani. ISBN: 1587050234. This title has a ton of information in it. It covers just about every technology that could make up a Data Center environment. The authors have done a good job of cover detail about the several technologies in this title. Some technologies are covered in more detail than others. For example there's a lot of information on HTTP related technologies and not so much detail on say routing protocol. This makes sense, because the title is "Data Center Fundamental".This is a great title for someone that is not well versed in several technologies, because the authors have covered a great deal of information and has done a good job presenting the basics of each. This will give someone that is not familiar with a certain technology the information they need to get an idea of the technology so they can continue to expand on what they've learned. Even though most of the basics are covered, the authors throw in great advanced information on technology that would pertain to Data Centers. I've learned a few nice advanced techniques on how to speed up network convergence when failures occur. The book is littered with nuggets of advanced techniques on ways to improve the overall architecture and performance of a Data Center.I would recommend this title to all IT personnel that are responsible for either Networking, System Administration, System and Network Operations, even Managers and Project Managers should have a copy on their desk. In this day and age, it's imperative that technical support personnel have knowledge that crosses over their job function and into other technologies that make up the rest of the 'Network'. This makes them more proficient at their work and more valuable. I would highly recommend this title to personnel responsible for Small to Medium Business Networks especially, because those folks don't always have the exposure to the many different technologies that are covered in this title and will give them a great start to doing it right.I think the Authors make good use of figures, diagrams and tables to augment the text where needed. The title isn't loaded with diagrams, but there are plenty to support the author's objective.There is enough information in here about the lower level working of protocols; to give protocol analyzer enthusiasts there money's worth. There are other books out there that cover protocol analysis, but few books do it well. This book covers protocol analysis well and with an easy to understand format with supporting window diagrams.The Authors have kept the sections straight and to the point. There is little wasted ink in here. There is some repetitive information in the book, specifically pertaining to HTTP header error codes. Not sure how the topic got covered three times. I suppose instead of having the reader reference one chapter/section on the topic, it was included in the text when needed. The information isn't exactly the same and by the time your done reading the book, you should have a solid understanding of Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP).I think the information contained in this book is a little heavier on the system side more so than the data networking side. I'm not suggesting there is a lack of information on the data networking side, only that there is more pertaining to systems.Overall I thought this was a great title. It crosses many boundaries of responsibility in the Enterprise Networks and ties them all together very nicely. I would certainly purchase another title written by these authors. They are thorough in their writing, with not a lot of fluff.

I was read this book few month back in a library and after that i was dreaming to buy this. Finally i got the book. This is a bible of DataCenter . Everyone working in Datacenter or who are dreaming to work such, this is the right book to buy.

Excellent condition at a great price. Very highly recommended!

A must have for anyone in IT infra sales, pre-sales, delivery units if they want to get their fundamentals right.

Good book but way too technical for the exam.

Cisco Press delivers a good book. The topic of Data Center fundamentals really talks about what you would design as a solution for a Data Center. In general there are configuration examples but not as many as you would probably like but the ones that are shown clears the picture about the concept and how to implement.The book is divided in 5 parts: I An Introduction to Servers Farm, II Server Farm Protocol, III Infrastructure Protocols, IV Security and Server Load Balancing, V Data Center Design and the Appendixes.I will say that the distribution and selection of how the content is divide and classify is very logical and very simple to understand what is the final goal of the book. The authors really made a very good work on this.One of the drawbacks I found on the book was that some of the chapters get into a very deep detail about how it works the technology and it is difficult for a few none technical people, for any other technical people probably they will find it very useful or even will help to remember curtains concepts.In general nobody puts their attention on the appendix of a book, sometime you use them sometime no, but I will recommend taking a look at it in order to know the information that is in there, it will probably help you in the future.One chapter that is very useful to really understand what is the purpose of the book and why its content is the chapter 4, where you will learn the blueprints for the Data Center.I need to state very clear that this book is really just showings one part of the Data Center. I will suggest that if you are trying to really cover all the aspects of the Data Center you will need to add some other material to the lecture of this book.Data Center Fundamentals really points the blueprints around the infrastructure mainly around the network and some parts of the end point, like the servers. When it covers this part it is really sad that the only type of server technology the author points out is the IBM Data Center, probably the justification is that it only talks about the Protocol but I would like to see some other vendors or general endpoints mention like blades, rack mount servers, tower or micro tower servers.I will recommend the book a daily personal reference because you can find out concept that will help you on your daily work when you're are designing or developing solutions for Data Centers in an enterprise or a service provider.I will suggest the author that for the second edition will need to cover the new technology that has emerge in the server industry and in the networking industry and will drive the industry for the next 5 years.My rating of the book is a 4, good book for reference.

This is really out of date.

Great book for exam prep

Although some of the information is dated, it's a great read full of a lot of good information that is still valid today. Overall excellent and comprehensive book. Great view of the foundations of the datacenter.