Distributed

If you are an IT professional with a good breadth of knowledge about the structure of enterprise data, systems and statistics, yet you are not sure what Data Warehousing, Data Mining or OLAP are, and are not even sure you know how to spell them, then this book is for you. (Rather limited audience if you ask me)

For the technically savvy, this book is excellent in covering, in minute detail, all of the possible needs, uses and commercial systems/products available to do Data Warehousing, Data Mining and/or OLAP. The tremendous amount of possibilities naturally causes this volume to lack the depth to actually guide a reader to an understanding of how they can implement these concepts. I do complement the author in possessing/researching such a tremendous amount of material. A downside is the fact that this book is instantly outdated because it is describing current technology (As of the writing of this book).

For non-technical Management and Executives however, this book will likely only confuse you to death and cause you to frown vehemently at the next person who recommends a Data Warehousing or OLAP strategy for your organization.

If you fit the profile that should read this book however, this is a great primer/eye opener to a rather large subject area called Enterprise Intelligence. Break out your reading glasses, (the print is small) set aside a good chunk of time, (the book is huge) and read it. Then find the suitable follow-up books that are in line with your new interests with Enterprise Intelligence. Keep a narrow focus when picking one of these. If you are a manager or executive, hire a team. This is a lot of stuff, and the need for this stuff is so painfully apparent that your business can not wait 4 years for you to learn this stuff.

If new to the domain of Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing, this book will provide a better than average job of arming you with enough technical information to make you dangerous in your "new territory". However, if you're seeking more depth in any of the title's areas or are looking for something "less-technical" (e.g., more of a business justification), other books would serve as a better reference. Nonetheless, for its broad coverage, this book is a good addition to any BI/DW practitioner's technical library.

I read this book a couple of years ago, then found it useful again recently when my work re-involves building data warehouses. This book has clear coverage on many topics in database and data warehouse. Authors often include descriptions of technologies as well as the motivation of using such technologies.

This is not a book that walks you step by step to implementations, but it is a book that will help you understand the technologies. Step by step guides are product specific, and extremely lacking in this area.

The book goes into great details of OTS. The topic on EJB is too shallow and doesn't even scratch the surface.

This is a good book for OTS hence the 3 stars.I must admit that I learned a lot about transaction management from this book

This is also a mouth piece for Inprise products. The authors only talk about the Inprise implementation as if they are the only true implementors!

Not much deep coverage on EJB's and JTS. But OK for OTS. In my opinion, java side of the book is weak . You can find sample code for EJB's (session beans, entity beans etc) and JTS on the web. You dont need to buy a book for just read code. I would expect more detail in this book.

If you don't know how to program enterprise java program,but wold like to act like you do or imtimidate your subordinates with buzz worlds and flesh phrases, this is the book for you! I am a project leader who micromanages my group. I use what I've read from this book to fool people everyday, especially those in the upper management It really works! buy it!

This book glosses over each subject with minimal technical information. I guess you could use it to get up and running, but don't expect anything beyond that. And if you run into any problems or advanced configuration issues, forget it.

This book has some fair information, but it is very hard to find what is needed by using the table of contents & the index. Its is also very generalized information, it did not help at all with just about every problem I have had with Exchange. I am giving two stars only because it has come in handy (very rarely), otherwise I would only give it a one star rating. I am still looking for the ultimate Exchange 5.5 book!

I got this book because of all of the lowing reccomendations that I saw for it. It has NO troubleshooting, and the information on the IMS is also very weak. Every time that I ahve had a serious Exchange issue that needed to be addressed, this book fell far short of what I needed. I have had to do everything through either online research, or reading an exam cram book. Don't do it.

This book is actually a methodology for implementing a new system, no matter which one. So, main points covered are change process issues, pitfalls in the implementation process and ways to ensure the success from a organizational point of view. So, little technical or programming stuff is supplied apart from some generic structure of SAP. If that is what your are looking for, this is a good book. Don't come here for technical/programming stuff or even for an end-user manual.

I think this is still one of the best reference books for implementing SAP, particularly the change management aspects. The 2nd edition had many updates that should negate older, more negative comments.

Wish I had picked this up earlier in my consulting career. The last 1/2 of the text could be applied to every ERP / MRP implementation I've ever been on. The authors do a great job documenting the "people issues" that often get left out. They discuss managing change, expectation setting, training, top management support. All those diffucult , often ignored , subjective "soft" stuff, that kills the spirit of the implementation team. You probably won't like the book if you're a die hard programmer. There's little technical programming here. But that's great if you're new to SAP, and want a non technical , yet detailed discussion of the set up and data requirements. I also used it to understand where the integration points would be - tables and data types - when implementing JDE, and had to bring SAP manufacuring data over to JDE financials. Most recently, skimmed highlighted areas to prepare for an interview. If I never install SAP, it was still an excellent investment in methodology.

The book doesn't compare to other DCOM books on the market

The book is out of date. I've found it very interesting

I wish I had read this book earlier, When most of the books dealt with a lot of theory, this is one book which makes you feel like you handled a real-life project.The sample Programme is very generic and shouldinterest one and all, He delves systematically into the subject. If one were uncomfortable with MIDL, I suggest he/she go thro' this book and come out all the wiser. I have yet to see a book which deals with conversion problems and solutions while converting a client-server model to a web model. A few things I found lacking were examples on threaded apartments and surrogates. But I give it full marks still because the parts covered are given such a nice treatment.

Due to our changing global economy, and old time German COBOL has crept into our industries under the guise of uniformity (SAP). If you try to pull the code part, you will find it full of German abbreviations. If you're lucky, you only need to know how to use the application.

Is your company used the canned application this book learn how to:

Log on to SAP R/3

Access the SAP r/3 modules

Use basic navigation skills

Work with master data

Generate reports

Read and interpret common error messages

Access extensive online help features

Instead of being at the mercy of the IT department most SAP users use a product called Monarch to produce their reports.

As a SAP project manager I can recommend this book in conjunction with an SAP introduction class for END-USERS with no background or experience with SAP whatsoever. The book is black and white but uses many visual elements and screenshots, so it is nice to read. I only gives a brief overview of how to start with SAP and get going. This book cannot replace face-to-face user training, however, it can be a good supplement. It is a short and sweet intro to SAP R/3.

It is good for an IT book has low price. It out of date very soon

The book does not have the in-depth coverage that expert SQL users would expect. If you are a beginner then it may suit you just fine. There are not enough nuts and bolts for people like me who really need the complete reference book.

A very good book on Oracle8 administration, performance tuning, backup and recovery. Full of well organized useful information.

I am primarily a Solaris system admin who wants to learn more about the inside of Oracle and what it takes to keep it up and running. The O'Reilly titles were a major disappointment since most of their stuff usually rocks, but let's hope for better 2nd editions on those along with some good tutorial material. The Oracle Press titles are totally disorganized and a major embarassment! David Austin has put together a great book with Using Oracle 8, and if you have to suffer through NT (and thank God I don't), he has plenty of material on Oracle Enterprise Mgr (all of chapter 4). Then he moves on to the nitty gritty, with a Unix-oriented or at least generic "pure Oracle" approach. I have spent two weeks browsing and reading various Oracle books and good choices are hard to find. I strongly recommend Alomari's "Oracle8 and Unix Performance Tuning" as well.

Micro$oft is famous for its ability to push out new development technologies. The reason behind this planned obsolesence is obvious, every time they come out with something new people will have to open their wallets to "keep up."

DCOM is just another disposable technology. As such, it was a complete failure; one that the marketing folks at M$ have tried to bury as quickly as possible under an avalanche of .NET hype.

DCOM was hard to port because, like COM, it is based on a binary standard (i.e. a standard that changes when you leave x86 and go to 64-bit RISC). Not only that, but DCOM doesn't support distributed transactions. Worst of all, DCOM is a very, very complicated technology to use. Three strikes... YOU'RE OUT!

The half-wit MBAs at Micro$oft realized their mistake and have abandoned DCOM, leaving it forever in the backwaters where the only record of its sorry existence are stupid books like this.

I have no idea why someone would want to buy this book. Folks, this is a dead technology. It is no more. It is an ex-techology. If you buy this book, you are lying to yourself. This book will sit an gather dust, unless you can find more productive uses for it...like burning it to stay warm.

The sad fact of the "Unleashed" series is that the publisher thought that by releasing huge, 1000-page books, that they would get more shelf space and attract attention. It's all a marketing ploy. You could easily condense everything down to 200 pages. So hunker down, grab a marshmallow, and throw this monster book on the campfire.

Anyone rating this book above a one is either a friend of the author or has shares in the publisher. The books consists of random chapters with no common thread or purpose.

From a basic introduction to multi-tier applications we jump into advanced COM techniques (where were the basic ones?) with no details of their use or benefit.

The book requires a good deal of COM/DCOM knowledge to make sense of it and offers little insight or explanation. For example, the different threading types are coded with little description in the text and there is no discussion as to their use or application.

I picked the book up for $7 dollars and I feel its barely worth that, never mind $31.

I keep coming back to this book and finding more and more information on working with the various parts of COM. I definitely recommend COM/DCOM Unleashed to anybody using COM.

Explanation is too cluttered and a lot of material is off topic(threads, sockets,..). On the other hand topics like the newer 1.2 Activation is not covered in detail. I felt "Java.rmi" book by Esmond Pitt to be a more useful resource.

I personally have a very high opinion of the technical level
and presentation of this book. The author gives enough substance
to all RMI components as well as enough how-to information for
a typical TMI deployment. What I apperciated most however is
that it's replete with small pieces of wisdom on distributed
systems design (e.g., scalability) that were eye-opening. It
also illustrates the distributed way of thinking through teaching to ask the right question at design phase.
It's true that it talks about more than strict RMI but that's hardly a shortcoming.
The reader wanting to see onl RMI stuff will find his way by picking the right chapters (you can't miss them).
Overall, excellent technical depth, good job.

The book is well organized from the basic technology to hgh level, deep technology. If someone wants to know RMI itself, this
book will be useless. But if someone really wants to know what distributed system is and how the distributed system is implemented using RMI, this book is very helpful.

This book is a difficult read. It's difficult because it's poorly written, it's difficult because it doesn't really say much, and it's especially difficult because after about an hour of trying to find something of value you will start getting very angry that you were ripped off. Supposedly this book should give you the information you need to "understand" SOAP. In fact, SOAP is not very complicated; it's XML messages flying back and forth via HTTP. It's like CORBA or RMI only text-based. But instead of getting this message across and exciting the reader about what can be done with the technology, the authors have chosen to write in the most boring, matter-of-factual language they could possibly utter. Worse, they bloat the pages with reams upon reams of C++ code. Not Java or C# or Visual Basic that most developers that would be interested in SOAP use, but C++. Each C++ segment is explained in painful detail by near-pseudocode text, no doubt to fill as many pages as possible but with the dreadful side-effect of boring the reader to tears. The chapters that try to "introduce" XML are particularly bad, dry and unintelligible. In fact, it almost seems as if the authors didn't understand XML themselves, which seems hard to believe since Stiver claims to have spent two years with it. Perhaps it's just really bad writing style, or really bad attention to detail, or just a great deal of pressure from the publisher to get something, anything, out and onto the shelves. The result is a worthless white book that should no be any part of a web developer's library.

This book contains actually too books: 1) A deep introduction to SOAP. 2) A description for a SOAP to DCOM to SOAP converting framework. ad 1) This book is a true must have for its description to SOAP. It shows the details in a clear and trustworthy stile. Also one gets a good impression on the impact of this technology without any hype. I am strongly looking forward to a new updated edition.

ad 2) This is hard stuff. You have to be reasonably well acquainted with DCOM at the ATL level. Some knowledge on Assembler is also more than helpful. The framework is ok, though incomplete. Yes it is a bargain at the price of the book and it is interesting to read through.

Should this be two separate books? I think so yes. Though than I would never have read the second book.

Excellent presentation of fundamental SOAP technology in chapters 1-7 (193 pages). Explains how the SOAP protocol and request/response model can be used in web applications. Compares SOAP with CORBA and DCOM. Illustrates the contents of SOAP request and response messages. Presents an ISAPI extension for monitoring SOAP traffic (debugging & development). Defines XML content of SOAP messages and shows how to package data types using XML types including base64 for data structures. Introduces approaches for managing state-information in a SOAP based application. Chapter 8 explains how Microsoft's BizTalk Server uses SOAP technology. Briefly discusses the philosophy of Microsoft's SOAP toolkit. Chapter 10 presents code for creating a transparent framework for COM objects which are unaware of SOAP to be called through the SOAP protocol. Chapter 10 covers at least 1/3 of the book, is difficult to understand, consists primarily of code, and occasionally drops into assembly language for unexplained reasons.