I must first confess to being a colleague of sorts of Evan's--I work in the same company (VERITAS Software), but in a different part. I'll also confess to having bought the book (yes, I bought it) more out of curiosity than out of an immediate need for the information it contains.
Having said that, I will go on to say that I am pleased with my purchase. This book is great, not because of the detail it contains in any one area, but because it tells you what all the areas are that you need to be concerned with if you're implementing a highly available system. Lots of books answer questions on how to implement this or that aspect of high availability; what's much less common is a book like this that you can use as a check list to see if you have all the bases covered. It doesn't go into great detail on any single topic, but it gives you enough meat to make informed decisions in the less technical areas (like staff, training, etc.) and to send you searching for more detail in the more technical areas (like backup, RAID, and clustering).
I'll pay Evan and Hal another compliment. I own many more technical books than I have read. I didn't really expect to read this book, just because I don't read most of the books I buy all the way through. What I found, however, is that this book sort of creeps up on you. You read a little, and a little more. You put it down, only to pick it up later. The information is very well organized and chapters are self-contained. You can pretty much open it anywhere and have an informative read for 15 minutes, for an hour, or whatever time you have to give it.
It's obvious that both authors bring lots of hands on experience to this book. The "Tales from the Field" anecdotal sidebars are worth the price of the book by themselves. I wish I could bring these guys to bear when I have HA problems. If I can't, I'll at least have their book at my side.
