Just prior to Ignite this year, Paul Cunningham with ExchangeServerPro.com, Michael Van Horenbeeck, and our own Tony Redmond self-published "Office 365 for Exchange Professionals" book. Digging out from BUILD and Ignite took quite a bit longer than I expected, but I really wanted to introduce this awesome book.
The book covers the obvious, but the title doesn't quite say it all. In eighteen chapters and around 625 pages, this particular book is unique for a couple of reasons. First off, unlike books you'll find from MS Press and other publishing orgs, this book is delivered by individuals intimately experienced working with Exchange server. The content is original and provided from the administrator's perspective. Want to know how to do <insert your topic here>? It's in there, provided in easy, step-by-step narrative. I've rarely read through a book this comprehensive. And, unlike an Ignite session, this isn't a high-level overview of forthcoming, nice-to-have features. It hits the mark directly, providing technical content that is educational and immediately actionable.
The second thing that makes this book unique is that it isn't finished. Seriously. Think about it for a second. Microsoft's products are on breakneck update pace, pretty much making all books obsolete within a month or two. Why would you buy into static content only to have the concepts change or even become irrelevant in a very short period of time. Microsoft's massively increased updating cadence may single-handedly put the technology book industry out of business.
What makes a book like this valuable is that the authors have promised to keep it updated to match new and changed features in Microsoft products. So, the book is always evolving and new versions of it will be released accordingly.
The book is designed to explain Office 365 to experienced Exchange on-premises administrators, but I think it will be valuable to anyone who wants to learn more about Office 365.
The book is available in PDF and EPUB formats for $44.95 only from the following web site: Office 365 for Exchange Professionals
Personally, I'd love to see this available from Amazon, but I can also understand the difficulties in providing it from the online retailer due to how often the book might be updated. Pricing for updates to the book have not been publicized yet, but let's hope the price is right.
Here's a list of the available chapters and topics:
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Chapter 1 - An Overview of Office 365
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Chapter 2 - Making the Decision to Move to Office 365
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Chapter 3 - Migrating to Office 365
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Chapter 4 - Managing Hybrid Connections
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Chapter 5 - Managing Exchange Online
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Chapter 6 - Managing Mailboxes
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Chapter 7 - Managing Groups
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Chapter 8 - Managing Public Folders
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Chapter 9 - Managing Addressing
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Chapter 10 - Managing Hybrid Recipients
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Chapter 11 - Managing Mail Flow
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Chapter 12 - Managing Clients
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Chapter 13 - Retaining Office 365 Information
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Chapter 14 - Office 365 eDiscovery
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Chapter 15 - Information Rights Management
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Chapter 16 - Data Loss Prevention
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Chapter 17 - Office 365 Auditing
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Chapter 18 - Doing More with Office 365
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Appendix A - Directory Synchronization
