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Windows��� Small Business Server 2008 Administrator's Companion (Pro - Administrator's Companion)
$59.99
I am very new to SBS08, yet I really didn't learn anything I didn't already know from this book. It basically just describes the new features, not much in depth. I think installing SBS08 and browsing around the OS would give you about the same amount of knowledge as this book does. And they call it an "Administrator's Companion." That's scary!

Try "Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed." I've barely cracked it open and I've already found a lot of the answers I've been looking for.

PRO: Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator Certification Practice Exam and Study Guide Bundle
$142.55
Transcender certification prep products are industry-best exam simulations that provide realistic simulations of IT certification exams.The Microsoft 70-646 practice exam and study guide prepares you for your MCITP certification in confidence with our 100% pass guarantee. The Windows Server 2008, Server Administrator measures your ability to accomplish some of the following technical tasks Planning for Server Deployment, Server Management, Monitoring and Maintaining Servers. Please note you will need Adobe Reader to view the study guide product.

70-646: Windows Server 2008 Administrator, Package (Microsoft Official Academic Course Series)
$72.00
Exam 70-646, Windows Server 2008 Administrator. The newest iteration of the Microsoft Official Academic Course (MOAC) program for network administration courses using Windows Server 2008 and mapping to the Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP) 70-646 certification exam. The MOAC IT Professional series is the Official from Microsoft, turn-key Workforce training program that leads to professional certification and was authored for college instructors and college students. MOAC gets instructors ready to teach and students ready for work by delivering essential resources in 5 key areas: Instructor readiness, student software, student assessment, instruction resources, and learning validation. With the Microsoft Official Academic course program, you are getting instructional support from Microsoft; materials that are current, accurate, and technologically innovative to make course delivery easy. Call one of our MOAC Sales Consultants and request your sample materials today.

Windows Server 2008 Administrator's Pocket Consultant (Pro - Administrator's Pocket Consultant)
$34.99
BOTTOM LINE: Don't hesitate to buy this book, but realize you will need TechNet and other resources to learn. Too many tech books are bloated with legacy inforation from previouse versions that have been hastily freshened-up; they are filled with information you can't possibly remember and will probably never use.

Why 3 stars? As another reviewer said its just a collection of cut and paste from TechNet and doesn't not have enough original high quality content or links to more in-depth info so giving it 4 stars trivializes 4 starts

PROS:
Smaller than other books, gives you basic info on many topics. The books best strength is that it recognizes that admins limited time. It provides very light reference - if you need to go beyond just understanding how something works and need to understand how to implement it you will need to visit TechNet. Only books that cover a single set of related topics like Active Directory will provide this kind of depth. Even full sized books will still give you the basics.

Remember, it's one thing to set something up in the lab or in a small network with a few hundred users and quite another to do it in an enterprise with thousands or tens of thousands of users or where you servers must interact over a WAN for centralized management. Also, often we inherit systems that someone else setup and we don't have the time or authorization to correct so we must use them as-is.

CONS:
The reality is that server 2008 does so much that it must be approached in small chunks that are relevant to what you need to accomplish the rest is left on autopilot.

As an aside, one of the strengths of the mainframe and UNIX is that the basic commands never change. There is a steep up front learning curve but the pay off is a fairly static and consistent environment. Server Core 2008 is Ms's way or recognizing the benefits of a stripped down faster and more secure command-line environment.

Microsoft has had to evolve from something with low security to higher security being overly integrated with very complex FAT clients. In order to keep the number of pages to the minimum - you get about as much info as a brief help file pop-up box would provide.

From windows 2000 on I feel that things have become so complex in the enterprise that the server must be split up in to specialities: Storage & backup, ntfs file / user permissions / group policies. Active Directory, security hardening, cluster / farm / high availability / network ip4 /ip6, scripting WMI etc, server and backup device hardware / complex storage arrays, and so on.