A few months ago, I wrote about the arrival of the new VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS technical deepdive book.  Having finished reading the book, I thought I’d write a quick follow up.

This book was a pretty easy read, and by that I mean it as a compliment in that the authors did a superb job in conveying the details of deep technical discussions in a way that I think is easy to comprehend and understand at different levels.  At the same time, the coverage did not disappoint.  All aspects of HA, DRS, and even DPM were discussed at length.  Along the way, Basic Design Principles in each section were highlighted to summarize the technical detail.

Duncan and Frank cover not only the supported parameters, but the unsupported and sometimes undocumented tweaks as well.  Most important, they are very clear in pointing out what’s supported by VMware and what’s not.

I feel that I have a pretty good handle on HA and DRS but that doesn’t mean that time spent reading this book was wasted.  I picked up some design bits that I hadn’t thought about before having not been exposed to the environments in which they would apply.  Some sources do a fine job in discussion either HA or DRS, but what sets this book apart is that it expands into how the two operate together which is just about as important to understand as the individual topics themselves.  The DRS and DPM chapters exposed the computational math behind the decisions which DRS makes.  Quite honestly, I probably learned the most here.  Not that I’ll be able to keep the formulas in memory for very long, nonetheless the content and the size of the book will make it a great reference.

Capping the end of a great book I was pleasantly surprised to find an Appendix containing all of the Basic Design Principles, as well as all of the advanced parameters for HA and DRS.  If you’re short on time for reading, advanced to the 11 page Appendix in the back and you’ll get a pretty good summary of the first 18 chapters.

If you buy the book, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Thanks Duncan and Frank!

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