Pretty weak book for a difficult topic

Wow, what can I say - this is really a terrible book for preparing for the exam.
My overall impression of the book after working with clusters and taking the exam is it is more introductory and overview than anything else.

First and foremost there is almost 100 pages in the book that the exam doesn't cover. On a 400 page book, including glossary and index, that is pretty bad. Most of what is in the book is straight forward enough taken from the exam objectives, but there was quite a bit covered in the exam that was not included in the book. The end of chapter questions in the book are a minuscule compared to the extremely lengthy questions on the exam.

There is mention of utilities that are required for certain functions of MS clustering but no background or much detail about them. They are mentioned in a "matter of fact" role than anything else. The info is available on the MS site but if a training kit mentions a resource they could have just as easily put some detail from MS instead of searching for it.

It is not all bad, there is a good introduction to some of the concepts of clustering. I gave the book 2 stars because it is not very effective as a study guide for the exam. Some of the info on the MS site is included in the book. Be assured there is little chance of "paper" MCPs in clustering with this as the official MS Study guide for exam 70-223.

This is a difficult exam with little material available on the subject. This book is no where near what it takes to pass the exam. I passed this exam with an excellent LAB, work experience, combing MS site for any and all info I could find, along with this and other books on clustering.

Other Reviews

• Pretty weak book for a difficult topic
• Inaccurate account of DHCP Clustering
• Good book on MS clustering however!!!