I have read hundreds of books throughout my career, as I’m sure many of you have, and I’ve found three general categories of technical books: On one end of the spectrum are books geared toward beginners that help readers get a basic understanding of each topic but are only skin deep. On the other extreme are highly technical reference books that try to cover every imaginable aspect of the subject (but typically fail to do so). Those types of books go into great detail about every subject, but—let’s face it—there’s no such thing as a book that covers absolutely everything. Those books in the middle of the spectrum cover the basics regarding things you should know, but go into greater detail about things you really need to know. This book was purposely written to be more of a book in the middle, and I’ll tell you why.
While I consider myself to be highly technical, I don’t like more complicated explanations than are necessary. This has been my approach while writing this book. My goal was to write a book that satisfies your need for technical details without making your head spin in the process. This book is clearly targeted to professionals, so I have made the assumptions that you already have a healthy understanding of servers and how they work and have managed a Microsoft Windows Server–based operating system in the past (even better if you are currently doing so).
