The short, short version: A very good book arriving very late. If you have an implementation that uses Windows Server AppFabric (or AppFabric for short) then there is no reason what so ever for not getting this book. A definite 5 star!

AppFabric
Do you remember the days when we called it Dublin and was afraid that Microsoft would topple our whole livelihood as BizTalk developers? Well I do and remember embracing it.

No matter how you look at it AppFabric is a good product and it is free, as in no charge. I cannot really understand why it did not take-off as it should have. Maybe it just got lost in all the Azure hype.

The book
I would like to state that this book would really have improved the chances of it being used in enterprise applications. The book is just that good. ...but late. I wish I had this book in 2010 when I was trying to implement AppFabric and make it work like a "light and free version of BizTalk". Others, like Jon Flanders and the ever working Ron Jacobs.

The book is following the, now established, pattern of the cookbook series from Packt Publishing; a short introduction, a description on how to do something and the a "how it works". Sometimes they add a "there's more". I like this pattern a lot , however as I have pointed out before, you loose some overall continuity and each recipe can be a bit isolated.

The writing is very good and as always I feel that the authors are really knowledgeable about the subject and that they have worked hard to keep it simple. A definite plus in my opinion.

The book covers
* Installing Windows Server AppFabric
* Getting Started with AppFabric Caching
* Windows Server AppFabric Caching - Advanced Use Cases
* Windows Server AppFabric Hosting Fundamentals
* More Windows Server AppFabric Hosting Features
* Utilizing AppFabric Persistence
* Monitoring Windows Server AppFabric Deployment
* Scaling AppFabric Hosting, Monitoring, and Persistence
* Configuring Windows Server AppFabric Security

They pretty much cover everything even if you should really know something about WCF and WF to really have use for this book, but if you are looking for a way to host your WCF and WF-services I think you already do.

In conclusion
This book is very good if you already have some application(s) running on AppFabric or if you are considering hosting some existing services on AppFabric. If you do not then this book is of no use. To me it is a nostalgic trip on a very good product that I never got to use.

Once again: If you want to use, or have, AppFabric: Buy this book.