Amazon.co.uk Review
This book is for IT professionals already au fait with current networking technologies who want to design, build or implement corporate networks based around Windows 2000.
Readers will probably be administrators of Windows NT 4.0 networks planning to upgrade to exploit features of the new system or those studying to take the Microsoft Certified Professional Exam 70 -216. Chapter 13 introduces Public Key Infrastructures, key elements of e-commerce, and the four types of Microsoft digital certificates that can be issued. It explains how companies can implement a Certificate Authority (CA) which will identify users by digital signatures and enable them to send encrypted e-mail. Issues covered include managing, revoking and renewing certificates.
Chapters are devoted to designing and building TCP/IP-based networks and to implementing enterprise wide security features. Others explain how to implement and troubleshoot features such as the Domain Name System (DNS), which allows computers connected to the Internet to be referred to by names rather than numbers: IPSec, a collection of technologies which provide protection against network attacks and the NWLink protocol, which enables users to integrate and migrate users from NetWare networks.
The book includes a CD-ROM containing a version of the operating system and instructions on how to install it, ring fenced from other systems. Each of the 14 chapters is divided into lessons on a specific topic, and prefaced by an useful estimate of how long each lesson should take. Each lesson includes a concise summary followed by questions designed to test the key concepts covered. There is an appendix with extensive review questions and a voluminous glossary. It is hard to see how this official Microsoft study guide would not be essential reading for any network designer planning to work with Windows 2000. It is certainly concise, well laid out and readable. More importantly, it is easy to cherry pick the topics you need to bone up on in a hurry.--Shan ni Ceallaigh
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