1.4 Assumptions about the reader

At this point, I should pause and share my assumptions about the reader’s knowledge and background. My assumption here is that you are already very familiar with the basics of Exchange Server and the history of the evolution of Microsoft’s most successful piece of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family. I assume, since you are reading this book, that you are taking the next steps in your knowledge of Exchange and are trying to complement your existing understandings about the setup, deployment, administration, and management of Exchange with additional information about how to achieve the highest levels of reliability. You may also be looking for recommendations on best practices and for ideas on how some new or alternate technologies may be leveraged to reduce downtime. If you would like more detail on the basics, you can refer to some excellent references on Exchange Server available from Digital Press and other publishers. These can provide a basis for much of the information I will discuss. Table 1.7 highlights some of my top picks for Exchange Server reference materials. These references are more general in focus on administration and deployment for Exchange and provide solid discussions of many points on which I will not elaborate in this book.

Table 1.7: Additional Suggested Readings for Microsoft Exchange Server

Title	Publisher	Author
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003	Digital Press	Redmond
Scaling Microsoft Exchange 2000	Digital Press	Bijaoui
Managing and Monitoring Exchange Server	Digital Press	Daugherty
Exchange 2000 Infrastructure Design	Digital Press	McCorry/Livengood
Securing Exchange Server 2003	Microsoft Press	Robichaux

Mission-Critical Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 seeks to explain and provide solutions for this most serious issue in Exchange Server deployments. The book will look at all of the various issues that administrators face when striving to ensure maximum reliability and disaster tolerance for Exchange Server. Exchange Server database technology, along with best practices for ensuring reliability and disaster recovery, will be covered in depth. The content will span existing Exchange Server versions through Exchange 2003 Server, but will focus on new developments, techniques, and technology available in the Exchange Server 2003 release. Topics such as disaster-recovery planning and execution, high-availability technologies such as clustering and high-end storage solutions, antivirus and corruption prevention, proactive management techniques, operations and user training, and so forth, will be discussed in detail. The goal for Mission-Critical Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is to provide a comprehensive reference and guide for successful deployment of highly reliable, disaster-resilient Exchange servers with the utmost levels of data protection.