I buy at least 25 technical/computer books a year and I can definitely say this is the worst one I've bought in the last year. I think I'll go and buy the Addison-Wesley one.

This book is vague and littered with manager-speak. Not for developers at all (there is no code, for a start off). If you have ANY understanding of objects and classes you will find the first 4 chapters completely useless.

It did have a reasonably good bibliography, but it's like they're saying, haha we tricked you into buying our book, now go read the good ones...

This book is a fairly light introduction to UML. It is an ok overview for those who don't really need to use it, but its not enough for someone who does.

On the positive side, there are some worthwhile areas of the book, particularly describing what the different types of UML diagrams are and what they represent in the development process. It's a helpful intro to UML, but there are better ones.

On the negative side, they have huge amounts of the book dedicated to things like OO vocabulary, developing apps in VB, COM and DCOM, CRC Cards, and Object Model Design Patterns, that have NOTHING to do with the title. And, several of the designs in the book can't be done in Visual Modeler or Rose. What were they using, Visio? Then make it a Visio book! Other diagrams that look like Rose diagrams had features in them that Rose doesn't have. Several valuable UML discussions (extends and includes in Use Cases, how to add class properties and methods -- only 3 pages on this) are very skimpy or just not there.

In short, this book is not at all what the title says. It is a very intro OO/VB/sort of Rose/a little Visual Modeler/UML book that doesn't give enough of what it says it will in the title, and presents a smattering of other topics that really aren't needed (and from which one can learn very little anyway).

Gives a Very basic overview of Clustering. Would be useful for somebody who has no clue about the world of clusters, Otherwise the cost is not worth it. If you are a techie, you can scour the net or look up some Magazine and get the same info without wasting any money. But, if you are a IT manager or Salesman, surely this book is worth decorating your shelf with ;-)

Gives an overview of general basic clustering principles, nothing real substantial. If your looking for the best basic understanding, spend a couple hours scouring the Net. (Time better spent!)

The topic of high-availability in the HP environment is worth understanding in detail for anyone who deals with mission critical systems. Unfortunately, the details and effort behind an implementation and/or configuration of MC/Serviceguard is not addressed. This makes the book essentially a kindergarten level primer of generic solutions, something you could get out of Datamation or Informationweek at no charge. If you don't know anything about redundancy, duplicate I/O paths, UPS, clusters, this may be your book. Otherwise, if you want something you could really use look elsewhere.

I am amazed that the authors of this "publication?" expect anyone to purchase their product on the amount of skimpy information they provide about content. Where are the sample pages? Their editorial review is totally inadequate.
These authors are saving a significant amount by using the PDF/download approach to marketing. Too bad they didn't decide to pass their savings on to the consumer!