Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook Review

Disclaimer: I am not paid to write about this book and the review written here is my own view.

I was recently contacted by Packt Publishing about their recently published book “Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook”. I have voluntarily reviewed books in the past (i.e. Windows Server 2003 Security: A Technical Reference by Roberta Bragg) out of my interest and curiosity. Same interest and curiosity lead me to accept the request and spend some time reading it. I am glad I did because I did find a few interesting things which while I may have known, have never tried to script either because there was no need to do so or was never asked to do so.

I figured posting the review here would give potential readers one more data point to take into their consideration. I am sure the book will benefit any reader working with Exchange Server 2010 and wants to expand on their PowerShell knowledge as it relates to Exchange Server 2010.

Without further due, here it is:

The Premise

Mike Pfeiffer is well known for his contributions to Microsoft Exchange community which has also earned him Microsoft MVP award.

Keeping him in check are the reviewers like Shey Levy, which only means one thing: it is going to be tough for Mike to make a mistake and have it go unnoticed into the book for publication.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook promises to show you how to automate routine tasks and solve common problems. The book is organized in logical sections walking the reader through key concepts and tasks to manage their Microsoft Exchange 2010 environment with ease.

While the book focuses on on-premise deployment of Microsoft Exchange 2010, the concepts covered should make reader comfortable in managing their Office 365 tenant.

The Content

The book dives into Exchange 2010 management tasks by starting on the right foot. While most of Exchange administrators would be familiar with PowerShell in some capacity, authors don’t just assume and start off with PowerShell key concepts. This is really helpful to novice readers just as much as experienced PowerShell users who may learn a thing or two they didn’t know before.

The book covers every aspect of Exchange 2010 management including recipient management, Database and Server roles management, High availability, Compliance and RBAC.

The book also covers scripting Exchange Web Services which was a pleasant surprise as writing scripts for EWS is difficult only due to lack of understanding on the subject. EWS API and scripting details in this book tries to address just that.

Each section is organized into different tasks reader may want to perform. The tasks have a good flow of precondition, how to perform given task and details explaining what the given cmdlet is doing or information on actual process being followed. There are also very useful tidbits in “There’s More…” sections at end of each task being performed. This will help reader not only understand the task at hand but to leverage the information to carry out other tasks that may be related but not explicitly written about in the book.

Summary

Overall Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook is a welcome addition to what’s already been written about Exchange 2010 or PowerShell. While the book doesn’t teach you Exchange 2010, it does a great job of educating the reader about PowerShell and how to get the most out of Exchange 2010 using PowerShell to manage it.