Rating: 
Summary: Shoddy
Review: After reading the earlier reviews, I asked a nearby BarnesNoble bookstore if they had a copy of this book in stock. They did, and so I spent a couple of hours reading it in their store. I was really unimpressed by this book. It is quite disappointing compared to others by IBM Press which I have read. Several chapters have numerous self-congratulations by IBM, but with vague promises of benefits if you follow the also-vague recommendations of the book. Most IBM books are solid technical tracts. This felt like a marketing promo.Yes, I found many of the typos pointed out by the 1st reviewer. Especially in the starting preface. They were easy to spot! The 2nd reviewer said he looked closely and couldn't find any. That for me destroys any credibility he has. The 1st guy pointed out that there were several in the short preface. The 2nd guy completely missed these. To me, if an author has many typos, it says careless and sloppy attention to detail. I try to put these impressions aside. But as I said, so much of the chapters are puff pieces anyway. Worse yet, the author was factually wrong twice, as the 1st guy said. The stuff about Microsoft being involved with the early internet was hilariously wrong. And the thing about the diagram of a user, his agent, and an application! People, there's been tons of stuff done about (smart) agents. The point to an agent is that it helps its user by not having him deal directly with m different applications- Agent mediates the interaction. But if you have never heard about agents before, the diagram is very misleading. I disagree with the 1st guy. He was too darned easy giving a ranking of 3.
Rating: 
Summary: The Author Comments
Review: As the author of this book, I feel it necessary to refute the misconceptions and disinformation attempted to be applied by certain reviewers. 1. Hastily written/ Shoddy - I spent 8 continuous months researching, interviewing, discussing this book with numerous people, teams, management, software corporations and developers of autonomic computing both within and outside of IBM. I cannot see how this gives the impression to some people that is "hastily written" 2. Poorly Edited - a great deal of thought, action and design went into the production style, approach and artwork. All the figures were originally drawn and constructed by artists at Pearson Prentice Hall. 3. Typos - Errors in words of works this size are not unusual, but regrettable even with the best copyediting and proof reading and errors will be corrected in the next printing of the book. I am inclined to look at this in another light, for example: 1. The book size is 300 pages. 2. The average no of words per page is 400 - I can confirm this as I wrote every word. 3. Total number of words in the book 120,000 4. Assuming 19 typos 5. That is an error rate is 0.0001% - I can live with that until book is reprinted. Whilst I respect reviewers right to offer opinions - they are and remain just that OPINIONS. I recommend potential readers to judge for themselves. - buy the book and judge for themselves. Richard Murch
Rating:
Summary: The Author Comments
Review: As the author of this book, I feel it necessary to refute the misconceptions and disinformation attempted to be applied by certain reviewers. 1.Hastily written/ Shoddy - I spent 8 continuous months researching, interviewing, discussing this book with numerous people, teams, management, software corporations and developers of autonomic computing both within and outside of IBM. I cannot see how this gives the impression to some people that is "hastily written" 2. Poorly Edited - a great deal of thought, action and design went into the production style, approach and artwork. All the figures were originally drawn and constructed by artists at Pearson Prentice Hall. 3. Typos - Errors in words of works this size are not unusual, but regrettable even with the best copyediting and proof reading and errors will be corrected in the next printing of the book. I am inclined to look at this in another light, for example: 1. The book size is 300 pages. 2. The average no of words per page is 400 - I can confirm this as I wrote every word. 3. Total number of words in the book 120,000 4. Assuming 19 typos 5. That is an error rate is 0.0001% - I can live with that until book is reprinted. Whilst I respect reviewers right to offer opinions - they are and remain just that OPINIONS. I recommend potential readers to judge for themselves. - buy the book and judge for themselves. Richard Murch
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly edited
Review: Autonomic computing is portrayed by Murch as an important and essential next step in the evolution of computing. In large part to reduce the complexity often present in current computing environments. Sadly, the message is undermined by signs of hasty writing and slipshod proofreading. In the three pages of the Preface, there are 7 typos. Not a reassuring sign for the reader. Especially if you read the blurb on the back cover, and then read the Preface for more information, as part of your deciding whether to get the book or not. The rest of the book contains more typos. Plus, several figures, like Fig. 5.1, are poorly done. They look like screen captures, where the detail is blurred. The figures should have been redrawn, using some graphics package, for greater clarity. Then there are inaccuracies, like this: "More importantly, despite Microsoft, IBM, and other proprietary software suppliers' rapid involvement, the Internet started life as openly as possible, with shared code as the normal mode." Well, the Internet's first connection was in 1969. Microsoft was not started till 1975. Six years later. It had nothing to do with the early Internet. And even after Microsoft was founded, for several years, its products were for isolated personal computers, possibly being able to communicate via modems. The implementation of an IP stack in MSDOS did not come till the 1980s. Well alright, you might say. Can we put these aside? What about the overall message? Okay, it is aimed at the management level. For example, you need to know about XML, which is one of the underlying standards used, but you do not necessarily need to know how to use XML itself, though that certainly does not hurt. There is some overlap in content between chapters. Probably unavoidable. It does have the advantage that you can pick an arbitrary chapter to start reading from, and not have to know much about the preceding chapters. At the book's level of discussion, it does furnish a good overview of IBM's efforts in this field. Plus the descriptions of competitors' offerings seems pretty objective. The overall impression given is that much remains to be fleshed out, by the entire computer industry, in terms of building actual autonomic systems.
Rating:
Summary: Useful to me as a computer manager
Review: I have read the reviews and I have read the book and to be frank I suspect the reveiws were not written by IT managers with the problems of running a large shop of hundreds of computers. From my viewpoint the book showed that IBM and others are working on solutions to the nightmare of computer support....just that alone was worth the read. I found the book well laid out and readable.
Rating:
Summary: Useful to me as a computer manager
Review: I have read the reviews and I have read the book and to be frank I suspect the reveiws were not written by IT managers with the problems of running a large shop of hundreds of computers. From my viewpoint the book showed that IBM and others are working on solutions to the nightmare of computer support....just that alone was worth the read. I found the book well laid out and readable.
Rating:
Summary: It is still a good book
Review: I think I have just made my point that certain Amazon reviewers are more interested in minor errors than book content. My recommendation to the previous reviewer is to look for employment as a book copy editor. What a waste of time and energy. I had no idea that reviews had turned into a chat forum. I stand by my original review that this is a good book and an excellent overall assessment of autonomic computing - with or without the minor errors.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended ? A book of Quality and Value
Review: I was concerned about if I should purchase this book based on the previous reviewer's comments regarding editing. On very close inspection before purchase, I could not find any editing problems. I have often found that Amazon reviewers think that authors are the best/worst and they are very picky instead of concentrating on what the book says overall. They concentrate on perhaps on or two details out of several thousand in a book of this size. MY conclusion therefore is that this book is well produced and has a clear style of delivery, approach, content from the author. I am more interested in what Mr. Murch has to say - and it is indeed interesting. Mr. Murch achieved his goals of providing a very comprehensive detailed look at this new autonomic approach to managing future IT and how it will be managed and what the technology, savings and resources that will be needed to switch to full levels of autonomic computing. It is especially interesting in the second section dealing with the autonomic architectures, how they function and what is required for each IT component. I found the chapter on "Other Vendors" interesting comparing Microsoft, Sun, Hewlett Packard, Cisco and others. Mr. Murch sums up with a series of technical, managerial and organizational recommendations, suggestions on how to improve and move autonomic computing forward. Autonomic computing is an enormous subject and Mr. Murch covers it very well in the 300 pages. There is much to be done by IT and this books gives readers a solid foundation and understanding of what is to be done and what can be achieved, savings and management plans. Overall - excellent work - glad I got a copy and I will recommend it to my team, my IT management and senior management end-users - all will benefit from it. Mr. Murch is right, IT itself must move towards more automation, less complexity, as he says " We owe it to our customers".
Rating:
Summary: Too Fluffy
Review: If you're looking for a technical discussion of IBM's autonomic computing initiative, this isn't it. Rather, this volume is primarily fluffy stuff suitable for a marketing presentation to upper management.
A far better source of information on autonomic computing is the IBM website. It has much broader and more detailed technical content. (For readers who actually do need fluffy marketing material on autonomic computing, the website has that, too. So, it's not clear to me what audience Murch's book is supposed to serve. Upper managers without web browsers, I suppose...)
Rating:
Summary: Here are the typos
Review: In an earlier review, I stated that there were several typos in the book; specifically 7 in three pages of the Preface, and others later in the text. Another reviewer commented that "on very close inspection ... I could not find any editing problems". He did not look very closely. In the Preface, page xxii - "The goals autonomic computing". There should be an "of".
Page xxii - "Autonomic computing have". Should be "has".
Page xxii - "Increased agility". Should be in italics, to conform to the other headers in the list that it is in.
Page xxii - "... making in IT operations much of the ...". There needs to be a comma after "operations". I have refrained from quoting the entire sentence, but if you read it, it is clear why a comma is needed.
Page xxiii - "continuos". Should be "continous".
Page xxiii - "ISV" is used twice. In the second instance, the meaning of this acronym is explained. If the author was going to do this, he should have done so at the first instance.
Page xxiii - "The ISVs must deliver software that not only meets those requirements but add additional value". The "add" should be "adds". It refers to the software and not the ISVs. Page 3 - "He stated goal". Should be "his".
Page 33 - "CRM" acronym is explained here. But it is used earlier in pages 30 and 31, without an explanation.
Page 34 - "IT must start taking positive steps forward if it wants enable of growth...". Should be "wants to enable growth".
Page 49 - "Automatic resource reclamation simplifies development and freeing unused network resources". Should be "frees".
Page 83 - "In was back in 1989...". Should be "It".
Page 174 - "can be spilt". Should be "split".
Page 177 - "Since it's start". No apostrophe.
Page 179 - "grids can compliment". Should be "complement".
Page 183 - "be considered complimentary". Should be "complementary".
Page 184 - "pay what you use". Should be "pay for what you use".
Page 184 - "Fellensteins' book". Apostrophe should be before the s.
Page 194 - "But is fits well". Should be "it". Above, I have listed 19 typos. There could be more. This next item is not a typo. But it is a logical inconsistency. Figure 12.1 shows an arrow pointing from the applications to the users, with the label "Interact with & deliver results". But the text says "The agent delivers the results to the user." A key role for the agent is to mediate between a user and an application, so that the user never has to directly deal with an application.
| 
