microsoft operations manager 2005 field guide
The last Field Guide book I read from Apress was the Active Directory one. I was very impressed with that book and the MOM 2005 Field Guide was no different.
The Field Guide books have a different format than a normal technical book: they're about half the size both pysically and in the number of pages. The reason for this, I'm guessing, is to make the book look like something you can just toss in your bag for a handy reference.
Everything about MOM is covered in the book (at least it seems that way -- I'm not a MOM expert by far). Capacity planning, installation, management packs, alerts, and reports are all topics that are covered. It's packed with diagrams and screenshots -- and that's always a good thing for a GUI-centric application. The diagrams are especially helpful when describing the different MOM architectures. Speaking about architecture, a good amount of the book is devoted to MOM design, both in the beginning with initial installation planning, and towards the end with management groups.
The introduction section says that this book is geared toward people who are already using MOM. I think if you're new to MOM and need a quick course on how to use it, MOM 2005 Field Guide will do just fine. I give it a 10/10.
