Title "Unix and Windows 2000 Integration Toolkit" Authors Rawn Shah Publisher John Wiley and Sons Publication Date May 2000 ISBN 0-471-29354-7 Price $49.99 (U.S.) Pros Strong background info on NT and its underlying systems with a focus on high-level network integration. Cons Too much time spent on hardware selection. Verdict Excellent read. This book will give you a great base for an NT/UNIX integration project.

The book starts out with a chapter on the basic concepts and history of UNIX. This is more of an overview section for people who are familiar with UNIX already. The first chapter talks about the UNIX file systems, UNIX networking and the UNIX user interfaces. The chapter is a good overview of UNIX, although if you are looking for a UNIX reference manual this book is not for you.

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After the first chapter, the author gets cooking. He starts off with basic concepts of the Windows 2000 operating system and then moves right into describing its subsystems, services and driver model. This is impressive. Shah does an excellent job describing the Windows 2000 architecture. I would have to say that this is probably one of the best Windows 2000 books I have seen yet. Most of the manuals we are seeing on the street delve into the concepts and interfaces, while the author of this book breaks down the process, services and architecture in such a way that a UNIX guru and his NT counterpart will both learn something.

After getting through the chapters on Windows 2000 file systems, networking, Active Directory services and hardware selection, I was extremely impressed. His knowledge of 2000 is not only in-depth but also technically accurate, although the chapter on hardware was a little dry and probably had way more information than you really needed.

The information I found most interesting and useful as far as integration goes was found in the later chapters. The author gives you some excellent advice and options on picking integration software, developing a plan for the integration and even walks you around a few "gotcha!"s that generally will hang up anyone doing UNIX and NT integration for the first time.

The bonus to all of this is the CD that comes with the book. The big thing I found on the CD is the vendor links, which take you directly to vendors who deal with this type of integration and offer software to help make it run smooth. The CD also includes a few simple documents for user surveys and asset management that I may use in day-to-day operations.

All in all, this is an extremely useful book. I found that it is worth every penny of its $49.99 US list price. I would see this as not only a great book for IT managers who are looking to start a UNIX and Windows 2000 integration project, but also a must for UNIX administrators looking to understand Windows 2000 better.

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