Book review: ConfigMgr Administration Cookbook

Recently I received a review request for the "Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Administration Cookbook". For me a change to review a ConfigMgr 2012 book and acquire some new skills. This practical cookbook shows you how to administer ConfigMgr 2012 and understand how to solve particular problems/scenarios.

Packed with over 50 task-based and immediately reusable recipes, this book starts by showing you how to design a ConfigMgr Infrastructure. The book then dives into topics such as recommended SQL configuration for ConfigMgr, deploying Windows 7 with OS Deployment, deploying Applications and Software Updates, managing Compliance Settings, managing Sites and managing Inventory amongst others.

In addition to its cookbook style, which ensures the solutions are presented in a clear step-by-step manner, its explanations go into great detail, which makes it good learning material for everyone who has experience in ConfigMgr and wants to improve. The book is designed in such a way that each recipe is presented as a separate, standalone entity and reading of other, prior recipes is not required.

The authors are Brian Mason (a Systems Engineer at Wells Fargo where he manages over 350,000 resources with ConfigMgr) and Greg Ramsey (a Systems Engineer specializing in global systems management for Dell Services). A book page link can be found HERE.

Note: Personally I think it's a good book for administrators who are familiar with ConfigMgr, and want to improve their knowledge on known and also new functionalities. Therefore a lot of recipes are added, which can be used for practical purposes. That way both theory and practice are combined in this book, which is certainly an added value.