As some of you know, today the Lync Server Cookbook has been published and it is available on the publisher’s (Packt) website
https://www.packtpub.com/networking-and-servers/lync-server-2013-cookbook
In the next few days it will be available also via Amazon, Safari and so on.
What I would like to share, right now, is the story behind the text and (also) publish a list of all the people me and the other authors have mentioned in the text
A Lync Cookbook? Let me think about it…
More than one year ago, Packt called me with the idea of using their “Cookbook” template for a book dedicated to Lync.
The idea of this kind of book is that you already know and use a software / solution and you need as many “recipes” (quick, step-by-step operations to perform on your deployment) as possible to use or, simply, you need to remember how to do something you are not required to apply on a day-by-day bases.
Given the audience, it is obvious that the recipes have to be, for a large part, in a range of expertise that goes from medium to advanced. You will never see an “Installing Lync” recipe or something like that in a text of this kind.
I had to think long and hard before accepting. As all of you, when talking about Lync, I am used to books that start from the basic information and gradually build on it. I was used to expect, in every chapter, an introduction to the topic and a learning curve not too steep.
Well, this is not our situation. To read the book, you have to know Lync quite well and you must be searching for something more. So, the idea and this approach to Lync are something new and I had no previous book to use as an inspiration.
I always try to “never start something I cannot finish” so when I said yes to the proposal, I had a basic idea about how to write the book outline and the book itself
We’re putting the band back together…
The Cookbook format is not a small one. It requires something like 300 or more pages and it is difficult to write it alone. Or, at least, if you have a family and a work (and you are also writing a book about Directory Services) like me, you will never be able to complete the work.
So I decided to search for some co-authors and to select them from people that could add value to the work. I asked to
- Alessio Giombini (who had already contributed to my book “Microsoft Lync Server 2013: Basic Administration”)
- Lasse Nordvik Wedo (that is the best I am able to think for Lync backup/restore and QoS )
- Antonio Vargas (an Exchange MCM, the best I could ask for the “integrating Lync with Exchange” topic)
to write a part of the book, each one of them working on an aspect of Lync they know very well.
I kept the bulk part of the book (seven chapters over twelve) for me, simply because I have authored other books before and I required less time to get used to the rules and schedule that authoring imposes.
We have a green light
On February the final outline was approved and the contracts were signed. I know that it may sound like we (me) were slow like snails, requiring eleven months to write twelve chapters. If you have never been on the other side of a book creation, I completely understand.
The fact is that you do not have to simply find topics – write them down – eat your own dog food. You have to send your work, read what the tech reviewers have to say about it and fix your work. Repeat the aforementioned steps n-times and you have an idea of what we are talking about.
We were lucky enough to have a group of outstanding tech reviewers. Pantelis Apostolidis, Gianluca Bellu, Tonino Bruno, Randy Chapman, Desmond LEE, Clinton Mann and Johan Veldhuis have contributed in so many ways to improve the text that I have to say it would have been a completely different book without their help
Thank you again guys 🙂
Mentioned in the Book
Inside the text, the reader will find a lot of links and suggestions pointing to resources on the Internet, to deep dive some aspect or feature. Here is a list of the people we mentioned in the book. Thank you for sharing your expertise and information with all the people out there.
Note: a special thank you to Ken Lasko that dedicated some of his precious time to review my chapter 3, dedicated to Lync Dial Plans and Voice Routing
Andrew Price, Andrew Morpeth, Bhargav Shukla, Chris Norman, Chris Williams, Corrado Mollica, Curtis Johnston, Drago Totev, Frederik Lefevre, Gianluca Bellu, Graham Cropley , Greig Sheridan, Guy Bachar, Iain Smith, James Cussen, Jason Sloan, Jeff Schertz, Jens Trier Rasmussen, John Weber, Jonathan McKinney, Justin Morris, Keenan Crockett, Ken Lasko, Kevin Peters, Matt Landis, Michael Greenlee, Michael LaMontagne, Mika Ullgren, Mike Branstein , Murali Krishnan, Pat Richard, Rui Maximo, Shawn Cathcart, Ståle Hansen, Thomas Poett and Yoav Barzilay
