New Siebel Administration Book

There are few Siebel books on the market, so when I found out about a book by the author of one of my favorite Siebel blogs, I wanted to write a review right away. Oracle Siebel CRM 8 Installation and Management, by Alexander Hansal, is an introduction to many of the key administrative tasks in short, easy-to-understand sections.
Some of the sections of the book are quite strong. The chapter on Siebel Remote is very good. It covers the various types of mobile clients for various users, the process of extracting the mobile client for a user, initializing local databases, keeping them synchronized, and many more important tasks. In a 25 page chapter, Hansal provides an overview of Siebel Remote that an administrator can read before diving into the Siebel Bookshelf guide that is more than 10 times as long. Another chapter on system monitoring offers a good introduction to that topic, including a pretty detailed overview of SARM analyzer functionality.
Some chapters are weaker. The chapter on access control, for example, was sketchy and confusing. However, in the balance, the book offers valuable assistance to a Siebel Administrator who wants an overview of the various parts of the job.
The book cover claims that the book "offers a comprehensive understanding of Siebel CRM." It does not do that. Instead, the book offers an overview. As an overview, it's quite good. Administrators who are new to the role would do well to read this book from cover to cover. The high-level understanding offered there can be supplemented with deeper dives into Siebel Bookshelf as real-life situations arise.