IT Systems Management: Designing, Implementing, and Managing World-Class Infrastructures

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Summary: Great Book
Review: Rich Schiesser provides an in depth look at the world of IT. Provding clear and concise information to aide in the success of any IT infrastructure.

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Summary: Guide for the Professional for IT Information
Review: Rich Schiesser, author of IT Systems Management, has done an outstanding job enabling the IT professional to understand a wide variety of information system techniques. What I like about the book is the ease and ability to find information about the topic in question. The table of contents and index makes the search a "slam dunk" to find information.

Rich's experience is evident in the field of information systems showing his knowledge acquired during his technical career. I refer to this book quite frequently and having had 31 years of experience in this industry, I find Rich's book a valuable tool.

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Summary: A must read for all business units!
Review: Rich's book has simplified the complex, all too often overwhelming topic of the IT infrastructure and broken it down into a non-technical, common sense format. For those immersed in their highly technical, specialized computer focus, he has brought together the IT Big Picture - A must read for all business units and IT departments. Mark A. Morales, Manager of Telecommunications, Option One Mortgage Corporation

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Summary: Practical approach to the IT foundation.
Review: The IT Systems Management: Designing, Implementing, and Managing World-Class Infrastructures, provides essential information to help you manage the most important IT responsibility, the infrastructure. This book provides a guide to help you understand and implement the essientials and maintain a solid infrastructure. The author provides sound advice to help with a winning strategy for success.

Features:

Provides practical, easily accessible advice.
Organizes information so you can delve directly into the topics that you need to understand.
Brings you up-to-speed on the business practices that are most critical to effective IT infrastructure operations, and more.
Provides a unique management perspective on the technical issues with the business ramifications for disaster recovery, and more.

Ken Cain, CIO

Rating:
Summary: Sharing What He Has Been Practicing For Years
Review: This book explains in a clear and easy to read format what Rich has been putting into practice for years. Shortly into my tenure as Chief Informmation Officer at 20th Century Fox, I brought Rich on board as Executive Director, Computer Operations. He quickly began to employ many of the processes and techniques described in his book to significantly improve operations within our data center. His methods of collecting and analyzing performance metrics, as well as processes to optimize customer service, were effectively applied throughout our organization. Now, he has captured the essence of his proven techniques in a very thorough and practical book. I would highly recommend this to those organizations wanting to improve the operational effectivness of their computing infrastructure.

Rating:
Summary: Complete coverage of critical processes
Review: This book provides sorely needed guidance for developing and implementing system management processes that will assure reliability, availability and support. The topics that this book addresses that are not found in any other I've read include:
* Production acceptance criteria - this topic covers the critical boundary between development or projects, and operations. The value of employing the book's approach to production acceptance is that applications and systems will be brought into production in a carefully controlled manner that ensures all operations is fully prepared to provide the level of support required by the business.
* Acknowledgement of the importance of facilities management, which is almost always overlooked until problems arise.
* One of the most comprehensive and well thought out collections of checklists I've ever encountered. The checklists provided in the book cover every aspect of systems management, ranging from staffing profiles, key issues in infrastructure support processes, to capacity planning. The checklists alone are worth many times the price of the book.
* Linking change control (a rare topic itself) to configuration management. I specialize in these two areas and can attest that the author's treatment is accurate and reflect best practices.
* Special considerations for web-enabled environments. Finally we have material that updates traditional management and support processes to reflect challenges of web-based computing. The tried and true methods many of us learned from mainframe environments impeded the meeting of business goals in web-based environments. This book gives advice that is useful and provides a foundation for evolving processes to meet these unique challenges.

I also like the way each topic is explored by starting simple and expanding into details that are examined for strengths and weaknesses. The net result is an understanding of all factors and issues, including many subtle ones that would have required iterations of trial and error to get right. Most importantly the author stayed focused on processes and best practices, leaving system management products to authors of books for a much narrower audience. This, in my opinion, greatly increases the value of the book and makes it applicable to anyone who is part of the system management or service delivery process. My only complaint, and it is minor, is the lack of a web site or accompanying CD ROM with the invaluable checklists and tools in electronic format.

Rating:
Summary: Great IT management reference
Review: This is a great book for all IT managers. It gives the reader a comprehensive and integrated view of all the key areas an IT manager must deal with. I particularly like the focus on IT processes. It is really the only way to manage IT. The book covers a wide range of topics including facilities, production acceptance, configuration management, change management, problem management, and disaster recovery, among others. Facilities management and production acceptance are key areas often overlooked in most IT organizations. They are covered well in this book. This is a great reference I plan to use often...

Rating:
Summary: Great ITIL based overview of Systems Management
Review: This is a great book for IT managers who need a reference book with stepwise procedures to help plan, implement and manage any area of IT Systems.

Rating:
Summary: Valuable Book
Review: This is a worth reading book for IT Managers, ITO Managers, Technical Managers, Infrastructure Managers, specially who are new to it.
It is written in a smooth style, with logic supporting every word of it.

Rating:
Summary: Good practical review of core IT infrastructure processes
Review: Very comprehensive and full of useful information. The author did an excellent job of describing strategic IT infrastructure areas such as Disaster Recovery, Configuration Management, Network Management and Capacity Planning together. This book is a must-read for all new and experienced IT Infrastructure Managers.

Mike Wilson - CIO, Option One Mortgage