WebSphere Application Server 7.0 Administration Guide: Manage and administer your IBM WebSphere application server to create a reliable, secure, and scalable environment for running your applications with this book and eBook

The book "WebSphere Application Server 7.0 Administration Guide" by Steve Robinson (Packt, August 2009) was my second book about WASv7 I could read recently with "Pro IBM WebSphere Application Server 7 Internals" from Apress as the first one. Not much I could say about the first book. I'll quote myself "It was a very horrible experience and lasted for way too long.". This time was different. It wasn't as much so I could recommend it without any warnings or such, but it was way better than the first book about WASv7 from Apress.When I took a look at the table of contents of the "WebSphere Application Server 7.0 Administration Guide" book I felt worried about having a copy of the WebSphere Application Server Version 7.0 Information Center (InfoCenter). WAS was there and I was there, but having merely glanced at its content I thought the book would make a difference. I needed a couple of examples in this book that would turn it into a fantastic, sample-rich workbook. Unfortunately, the missing word 'review' in the book's title would make a huge difference and place the book in a right category. That's why I'm not going to read such books any longer unless they convince me they're different than just a mere review of available features in a product. WAS is quite a huge beast and 300-page book isn't going to cover each and every feature with enough detail. Now, I understand the "Who this book is written for" on the end cover - "This book is for administrators with some experience in Java who want to get started with WebSphere". I wouldn't have put it better. I however can't agree with its ending "Existing WebSphere users will also find the book useful, especially as there are so many fresh features in the new version". That's the point - there are so many fresh features in WASv7 yet the book didn't pay much attention to them. It's misleading in my opinion.The very first (semi)chapter - Preface - started strong with "As a J2EE (Enterprise Edition) administrator...". Hasn't the acronym J2EE been buried already? Isn't the book supposed to talk about Java EE (or JEE for short) which is the acronym for Java EE 5 spec, which in turn is what WASv7 provides (among other features)? I was really worried with the wording. Then, a few sections further, I could read "Taking you through by examples" and "real-world examples of manual and automated deployments". That was it! I needed exactly the book. My expectation upped high (as it quickly turned up, it was a false alarm). I was reading along. Then, the section "What this book covers" explained what the chapters provide and I was sure Chapter 2. "Deploying your Applications" wasn't for me (too soft and about everything yet not much about WASv7 itself). When I read the description of the chapter 6. "WebSphere Messaging" a bad feeling of uncertainty came to me again as it was the first time I'd read "WebSphere Message Queuing" rather than "WebSphere MQ" and no SIBus was mentioned. Something was wrong. Other than that everything seemed fine. I liked that the author used other software like OpenLDAP and Oracle XE for his administration endeavor. I liked them being run on Linux, too. With a mixed feeling I read on.The chapter 1. "Installing WebSphere Application Server" started with a note that WASv7 for Linux works on CentOS, Fedora and Ubuntu which made this particular sentence worth many others in this book. This kind of information would hardly be found in the InfoCenter. I don't understand why the author assumed people would work on Windows (or other OSes) and use putty to connect to Linux where the WASv7 installation would be performed. Why was it better than assuming that readers would read about WASv7 administration on Linux with some pointers to its Windows-based administration counterparts (provided they differ)? Since the installation was performed in a GUI mode, XServer on the imaginary Windows box was necessary, which all ended up as 2 pages about nothing relevant to WASv7 installation. Although I like such additions (which make my toolbox more flexible), I don't think it was worth its time in this book. I wish it had been used for more explanation about the silent installation feature of WAS which took just 1,5 page with the section "Editing a response file" with...a single sentence (!) A unreadable file listing on page 24., a few typos (Centre, 'now' doubled in a sentence, eexamples, WebSphere as a host name whereas websphere should've been, spaces in a file path) and incorrect product names (X Windows, WebSphere 7, ivf) didn't make me happy with its content.The chapter 2. "Deploying your Application" demoed how to create database resources in WAS (JDBC provider and its accompanying data source) required by a data access application. It happened a couple of times when I asked myself who this book is targeted at. Sometimes, the author assumed that we're application development pros (page 74 about Authentication alias and how it relates to res-auth property of an EJB) yet it explained stuff one would know without being a pro - the different types of application modules (JARs, EARs, WARs). I'm still unable to decipher what the sentence "Saving this will persist the configuration to disk the resources to resources.xml" was supposed to mean. Again, a few typos (Share instead of Shared in "Map Share Libraries", JARS not JARs, "jdbc/hrdatasource" not "jdbc/mydatasource" as shown on the screenshot on page 78) found their place in this chapter, too. I'm still uncertain who should read the chapter - novice administrators, programmers or a mixture of them - and what their knowledge should be. It wasn't clear to me.The chapter 3. "Security" was pretty decent bunch of very useful information. I haven't got much security savvy and I hence was looking forward to reading the chapter. I wasn't disappointed at all. Quite detailed chapter about how to configure WASv7 and OpenLDAP as a user registry. I missed an example about federated repositories or configuring Kerberos. They would surely bring more value than explaining how to build OpenLDAP from the sources in the section "Configuring OpenLDAP". Some typos ("Operating System" not "Open Source" at page 83, "Internet Explorer" not "Internet explorer" at page 90, "implementation" not "implantation" at page 94, ".../etc/openldap" not ".../etc/openlda" and many others), unreadable screenshot at page 95 found their way into this chapter too. Despite its inefficiencies, I liked the chapter much.The chapter 4. "Administrative Scripting" begun. Honestly, I couldn't wait till I read it. The chapter started with a description of ws_ant and its use to deploy an enterprise application. A sample deployHR.xml file was provided. Unfortunatelly, ws_ant wasn't described in detail as I expected. There was way too less material and samples about its use in a book about WAS administration. The next tool described in the chapter was wsadmin. A couple of samples of using wsadmin in interactive and scripted mode upped the value of this chapter. I would recommend it for anyone who's on his/her way to WAS administration using Jython scripts. I liked it (although the typos found their place in this chapter too).The title of the chapter 5. "WebSphere Configuration" says it all. It described "key areas important to the administration [...] of WAS and [...] applications" (page 141). The directory structure of the product itself as well as profiles was presented. There's a note that points to the WASv7 InfoCenter for further investigation of the topic. I wish "FFDC logs" section took more than 4 sentences and a link to the InfoCenter's chapter would help a lot. A couple of typos and not much details on the topic. It could've been better, but what's available wasn't that bad.Finally, the chapter 6. "WebSphere Messaging" about the part of WAS I think is not understood very well by its administrators, myself including. The chapter begun with description of JMS and its concepts. There are figures with the concepts sketched that helped understand the spec. Next, the author went on to describing WebSphere messaging layer with its main actors: WebSphere Default JMS provider and WebSphere SIB. There was description of bus configuration and its JMS resources (queue connection factory and the queue itself) for the JMS demo application. The JMS Test Tool application was described, too. The section "Installing WebSphere MQ" let me know how it was to utilize WMQv7 for messaging layer which I haven't used before. Overall, the chapter was fine for WebSphere Messaging administration novices. For those who know what it is to administer the messaging layer of WAS I doubt anything will be of any importance. I hoped for some information about WASv7 features in this space, but I didn't find any.The chapter 7. "Monitoring and Tuning" described TPV and how to use it with the sample application. There's a table with JVM properties for WAS to control heap dump generation (page 225). I'm sure it was in this book when I have first seen it. This was that sort of information I'd expect more. A couple of pages about IBM Thread and Monitor Dump Analyzer for Java (JCA) greatly improved the quality of the chapter. Enough practical knowledge for me yet I wished more. I missed information on the latest additions in WASv7 in this space. Wasn't it the goal of the book?The next chapter 8. "Administrative Features" is about the new kid of WASv7 - the administrative agent. There're pages about using PMT to configure a profile for it and another application server node. I could read about IHS itself and its plugin installation with necessary details. Enough for the topic. Worth its time.The last chapters, 9. "Administration Tools" and 10. "Product Maintenance" presented administration tools and how to maintain WAS in a good shape. They're short yet very informative without much ado. Perhaps, not much to pleased anyone unless they're considered a starter for a longer read in other sources.I learned very little. To be honest, I was pretty happy the book finished. I don't think I would let myself be reading it any longer. I'm sure that reading the InfoCenter would bring more value than the book which seemed very informatory yet it merely scratched the surface of WASv7 administration. I didn't like "You can search Google to understand how..."-like advices in this book that seemed to have convinced me to find answers elsewhere.

I was very dissapointed to order this book only to find out that it was for the Linux operating system rather than windows.Not only that, but then the Authors expected you to download the Linux System, Install and get it running. On top of this they then just gave you a link to dowdload the WAS software .... Hello everyone knows taht these links constantly change and surely the Authors could have had a cd attached to the back cover with the software included.Sadly i was put off and sent the book back for a refund. The Authors could have had a good book , if tehy had just not been lazy and tried to cut corners. For instance , They give you links to examples etc !!! hello not everyone has a internet connection .,.... This is just lazy and cheap by the Authors.Finally Amazon shouold have done better : They should make sure the description cleary indicates this book is not for windows !!! After all its now cost them in man hours having to reprosses the book.Could do better

This is a very frustrating book. Not worth the spend.Until you get it home, You will not realise thatthe examples/book are for a linux environment.Hence if u are using a windows environment, You will seeu have wasted our pennies.This should be made clear to the reader in the description so they dont wastethere time. I should say also, that the book was hastily put together & only skims the surfacevery poor

You hope to buy a book like this to provide details that are not available from the WebSphere Info Center or Redbooks. This is a terribly disappointing book that appears hastily written and simply not worth spending money on. It does not provide detail on any new issues or problems you will experience when migrating to WebSphere v7.0. This book is in stark contrast to the excellent 'Pro WebSphere 7.0 Internals' book.