SharePoint 2007 Unleashed by Michael Noel and Colin Spence, SAMS Publishing 2007, 840 pages; ISBN-10: 0672329476
Several weeks ago I was approached by a representative from Pearson Education / SAMS publishing to review their new series of SharePoint 2007 reference guides, beginning with the subject of today's post:
Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Unleashed.
In the interests of full-disclosure for this post, I was provided a complimentary review copy of the book in exchange for blogging about my impressions - so, this post is without bias.
Now that we have that obligatory preamble out of the way, it's time to get to brass tacks - and they're heavy tacks: Readers familiar with the "Unleashed" line will recall that the books are often hefty, and SharePoint 2007 Unleashed is no exception. Weighing in at over 800 pages and 1.13 kg, the tome projects a no-nonsense treatment of the subject matter - sure to impress casual passers-by to your cubicle - and in this regard, it is thorough.
This is the second SharePoint Unleashed book that the authors, Michael Noel and Colin Spence, have written with the first focused on the 2003 version of the platform, and indeed they have leveraged their collective SharePoint 2003 experience to provide context to understanding MOSS 2007. Unfortunately, this is both its strength and weakness, as the device is used so often throughout the book that it should probably have been titled SharePoint 2007 Unleashed for SharePoint 2003 Users.
Indeed, the reliance on foreknowledge or experience with SPS 2003 directly impacts the target audience for the book as the authors seem to spend a lot of time addressing 2003-specific scenarios such as content migration patterns and strategies or how the new platform presents an improvement over the old.
As a consultant who has worked on both platforms, I understood and appreciated the juxtaposing of 2003 and 2007 features, however readers who don't have the background will find some of the references mystifying - and in my opinion, they're not really necessary. In much the same way that OOP should be taught without a tour of functional programming through the ages, so too should MOSS 2007 be taught as an island unto itself.
Additionally, I hasten to mention in this regard that SharePoint 2007 Unleashed is not a book for those unfamiliar with the technologies that comprise a typical SharePoint installation (ie IIS, SQL Server, Win 2k3) - while steps for configuring and installing various components are outlined, the authors make an unwritten assumption that readers have at least a baseline familiarity.
Nonetheless, the content is expansive covering just about every element of planning, installing, configuring, tuning, monitoring and administering a SharePoint 2007 server. In some respects, SharePoint 2007 Unleashed can be thought of as a well-annotated physical copy of all the help docs and MSDN references for using SharePoint.
Inside you'll find twenty-two chapters chock-full of information on how to do almost any basic task with the platform along with advice on "the right way" and "the wrong way" to approach your first installation. I found the chapters on planning quite good as they address the tempation of many newbies to just rush-in and create site collections and libraries without thinking things through first. This is vital, as a poorly laid out site won't be adopted and used in an organization, something that the authors underscore several times.
This said, if you are looking for greater depth similar to what you would find in an O'Reilly Press "Nutshell" book, you will be left a little disappointed. While there are valuable insights and drill-downs, SharePoint 2007 Unleashed was written with the intent of doing a 1000' flyby as opposed to being an in-the-trenches technical field guide. Depending on where you're at in your mastery of MOSS 2007, this could be just what you're looking for.
Structurally, the book is well laid out with several good features that I think could be expanded on to increase its value as a go-to guide, such as aggregating the interspersed tips, cautions and notes callouts at the back of the book, or at least a quick look-up. They are arguably the best feature of the book as they draw on the authors' experience to shed light on problem areas that you'd otherwise be unware existed.
I also found the way the chapters were laid out to lend to a sense of overall consistency and coherency: Each is prefaced with a set of bullets highlighting the key topic areas and conclude with a summary of "Best Practices" that were discussed - if you want to get a quick read, just go over these two areas and you're rapidly up-to-speed.
While I did find the first half of the book a rather pedantic review of "how SharePoint works", the latter half proved of higher value with focus directed on the more challenging (and often overlooked) aspects of managing a SharePoint installation, such as security, monitoring via MOM, using Remote Desktop to invigilate servers, leveraging ISA Server 2006, and using SharePoint Designer to perform administrative tasks.
Nevertheless, I felt that there were a couple of shortcomings even here. For example, only cursory attention is paid to the STSADM command line tool for doing site backups - the rest is left up to the reader to discover on their own. Now, Noel and Spence do provide a sample cscript to demonstrate automating STSADM backups (good), but in this day and age I was left wondering why they didn't demonstrate using NAnt or MSBuild for the same purpose.
This also brings to mind another inconsistency that I think would improve the reference value of the book: The above script is provided in the book and on the SAMS publishing website - yet, there are no similar aggregations of the numerous and byzantine URLs to Microsoft resources made throughout the text - it's up to the reader to type in these amazingly long addresses and querystrings to find supporting content. Might I suggest using a free service like TinyUrl or Shrinkster to make it easier on both the writers and the readers?
An additional shortcoming that I have to mention because it does affect readability is the numerous grammatical and typographical errors I encountered. For example, on page 571 of my copy under Downloading and Extracting the SharePoint 2007 Management Pack for MOM 2005 my eyes literally stumbled on this:
To install$I~MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager);Management Packs;downloading> the MOSS 2007 Management Pack on a MOM Management server...
It seems that this book was rushed to print and editing was compromised in the process. Again, it's a notch above being a minor nuisance because the "bugs" are so pervasive and will definitely distract attentive readers. My advice: Wait for the 2nd edition when they nail these.
Overall, I found SharePoint 2007 Unleashed a good "soup-to-nuts" reference guide about the platform that is generally well-organized and thought out in its treatment and presentation of the material. There are a lot of screen captures to help visualize the numerous interfaces MOSS and its attendant utilities and apps (like IIS and SQL Server 2005) sport, as well as breaking down various tasks into steps that are easy to follow.
In the final analysis, however, I'd have to recommend this book only to would-be administrators with an intermediate level of experience with Microsoft technologies - some exposure to SharePoint 2003 wouldn't hurt, either. This book can provide a lot of food for thought that can be shared with a team or managers to build a case for deploying MOSS in an organization, but it has to be in the right hands!