SQL Server Books

MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-443): Designing a Database Server Infrastructure Using Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2005 (Pro Certification)

J.C. Mackin, Mike Hotek

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Announcing an all-new Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) Training Kit designed to help maximize your performance on Exam 70-443, an exam for the new MCITP: Database Administrator certification. This kit packs the tools and features exam candidates want most—including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; exam tips from expert, exam-certified authors; and a robust testing suite. It also provides real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for skills and expertise that you can apply to the job.

Focusing on SQL Server 2005, this official study guide covers topics such as designing a database server infrastructure, designing security for a database server solution, designing a physical database, designing a database solution for high availability, specifying data recovery technologies based on business requirements, and designing a strategy for data archiving.

Ace your exam preparation and ramp up quickly on SQL Server 2005 database administration by working at your own pace through the lessons, hands-on exercises, and practice tests. The CD features 425 practice questions and a flexible test engine with pre-assessment and post-assessment capabilities. Choose timed or untimed testing mode, generate random tests, or focus on discrete objectives or chapters, and get detailed explanations for right and wrong answers—including pointers back to the book for further study. You also get a 180-day evaluation version of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition and a 15 percent exam discount voucher—making this kit an exceptional value and a great career investment

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Unleashed

Ray Rankins, Paul Bertucci, Chris Gallelli, Alex T. Silverstein

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Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

<>Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Unleashed offers comprehensive coverage of SQL Server 2005 that goes beyond the basic syntax and information you’ll find in the product manuals, providing in-depth information derived from the authors’ real-world experience to help you build upon your working knowledge of the product and take your experience and knowledge to a higher level. This book focuses primarily on the information needed by system and database administrators, as well as for users with overlapping duties as both DBA and developer. Included is extensive coverage of the new features and upgraded tools and capabilities of SQL Server 2005, including .NET Framework integration, Integration Services, Service Broker, Database Mirroring and Snapshots, and Reporting Services.

 

Detailed information on…

• Installing, upgrading, and administering SQL Server 2005
• Database maintenance, backup, and recovery
• Creating and managing tables, views, stored procedures, triggers, and user-defined functions
• Database and index design
• SQL Server query optimization, and performance monitoring and tuning
• Transactions, transaction management, and distributed transactions
• SQL Server Management Studio—NEW!
• SQL Server Notification Services; Integration Services—NEW!; Analysis Services; Reporting Services—NEW!; Web Services—NEW!
• SQL Server Service Broker—NEW!
• SQL Server and Microsoft .NET Framework integration, including CLR-based stored procedures, functions, and triggers—NEW!
• SQL Server high availability and SQL Server clustering and replication
• Database Mirroring—NEW!
• Database Snapshots—NEW!
• Using XML in SQL Server 2005
• SQL Server tools and utilities

 

CD-ROM includes

• 8 bonus chapters covering topics such as Notification Services, Service Broker, and Full-Text Search
• Code samples, scripts, and sample databases
• A PDF version of the entire book

 

Introduction

Part I Welcome to Microsoft SQL Server

1 SQL Server 2005 Overview

2 What’s New in SQL Server 2005

Part II SQL Server Tools and Utilities

3 SQL Server Management Studio

4 SQL Server Command-Line Utilities

5 SQL Server Profiler

Part III SQL Server Administration

6 SQL Server System and Database Administration

7 Installing SQL Server 2005

8 Upgrading to SQL Server 2005

9 Client Installation and Configuration

10 Security and User Administration

11 Database Backup and Restore

12 Database Mail

13 SQL Server Scheduling and Notification

14 SQL Server High Availability.

15 Replication

16 Database Mirroring

17 SQL Server Clustering

Part IV Database Administration

18 Creating and Managing Databases

19 Creating and Managing Tables

20 Creating and Managing Indexes

21 Implementing Data Integrity

22 Creating and Managing Views in SQL Server

23 Creating and Managing Stored Procedures

24 Creating and Managing User-Defined Functions

25 Creating and Managing Triggers

26 Transaction Management and the Transaction Log

27 Database Snapshots

28 Database Maintenance

Part V SQL Server Performance and Optimization

29 Indexes and Performance

30 Understanding Query Optimization

31 Query Analysis

32 Locking and Performance

33 Database Design and Performance

34 Monitoring SQL Server Performance

Part VI SQL Server Application Development

35 What’s New for Transact-SQL in SQL Server 2005

36 SQL Server and the .NET Framework

37 Using XML in SQL Server 2005

38 SQL Server Web Services

Part VII SQL Server Business Intelligence Features

39 SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

40 SQL Server Integration Services

41 SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

Bonus Chapters on the CD

42 Managing Linked and Remote Servers

43 Configuring, Tuning, and Optimizing SQL Server Options

44 Administering Very Large SQL Server Databases

45 SQL Server Disaster Recovery Planning

46 Transact-SQL Programming Guidelines, Tips, and Tricks

47 SQL Server Notification Services

48 SQL Server Service Broker

49 SQL Server Full-Text Search

Index

 

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-431): Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Implementation and Maintenance (Pro-Certification)

Solid Quality Learning

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Announcing an all-new MCTS Training Kit designed to help maximize your performance on Exam 70-431, a core exam for the new Microsoft IT Professional certifications. This kit packs the tools and features that exam candidates want most—including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; exam tips from expert, exam-certified authors; and a robust testing suite. It also provides real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for skills and expertise that you can apply to the job.

Focusing on SQL Server 2005, this official study guide covers topics such as installing and configuring SQL Server, implementing database mirroring, managing database snapshots, working with XML and flat files, managing replication, backing up and restoring a database, monitoring and troubleshooting, and creating and implementing database objects.

Ace your exam preparation and ramp up quickly on SQL Server 2005 database administration by working at your own pace through the lessons, hands-on exercises, and practice tests. The flexible, best-of-class test engine on CD features 300 practice questions and pre-assessment and post-assessment capabilities. Choose timed or untimed testing mode, generate random tests, or focus on discrete objectives or chapters, and get detailed explanations for right and wrong answers—including pointers back to the book for further study. You also get a 180-day evaluation version of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition and a 15 percent exam discount voucher—making this kit an exceptional value and a great career investment.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services 2005

Brian Larson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Save your money.... 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

There's obviously 2 versions of this book: Version 1 uses the Adventureworks data; Version 2 uses Galactic Shipping data.....Installing the Galactic database and info is IMPOSSIBLE!!! Make sure you get the first version or you will truly be sorry (like I am!!!)....Other than that, the book is great.....but finding the download and installing it is truly more trouble than it's worth.......BEWARE!!!

Sql server 2005 Reportin Service, Brian Larson 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! This is a book seems to be targetting retarded. There is a chapter on datbase concepts - if some one does not know, it is unlikely they will be reading reporting services. Too much fluff and descriptions are buried in the fluff. If you skip the fluff, you may find yourself difficult to connect dots. Too much details on formatting fonts, colors which is completly useless.

Editorial Review:

Microsoft's Reporting Services product is a vital part of the SQL Server 2005 business intelligence platform, but it works with virtually any data source. This hands-on guide explains how to transform data into insightful and interactive Web-based reports using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. With coverage of everything from installation to administration, the book demonstrates how to use this powerful server-based reporting solution to improve business decision-making and facilitate company-wide -- even worldwide -- communication.

Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

Brian Knight, Ketan Patel, Wayne Snyder, Ross LoForte, Steven Wort

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Editorial Review:

Loaded with unique tips, tricks and workarounds for handling the most difficult SQL Server admin issues, Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration is a how-to guide for experienced DBAs. Understand how to manage and monitor the SQL Server, automated administration, security, change management, performance tuning, scaling and replication, clustering, and backup and recovery. This updated edition includes new information about Change Data Capture, Performance Studio, Query Governor, and new techniques for monitoring and policy management so that you can have the latest and most comprehensive information at your fingertips.

The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server 2005 and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Toolset

Joy Mundy, Warren Thornthwaite

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This groundbreaking book is the first in the Kimball Toolkit series to be product-specific. Microsoft’s BI toolset has undergone significant changes in the SQL Server 2005 development cycle. SQL Server 2005 is the first viable, full-functioned data warehouse and business intelligence platform to be offered at a price that will make data warehousing and business intelligence available to a broad set of organizations. This book is meant to offer practical techniques to guide those organizations through the myriad of challenges to true success as measured by contribution to business value.

Building a data warehousing and business intelligence system is a complex business and engineering effort. While there are significant technical challenges to overcome in successfully deploying a data warehouse, the authors find that the most common reason for data warehouse project failure is insufficient focus on the business users and business problems. In an effort to help people gain success, this book takes the proven Business Dimensional Lifecycle approach first described in best selling The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit and applies it to the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 tool set.

Beginning with a thorough description of how to gather business requirements, the book then works through the details of creating the target dimensional model, setting up the data warehouse infrastructure, creating the relational atomic database, creating the analysis services databases, designing and building the standard report set, implementing security, dealing with metadata, managing ongoing maintenance and growing the DW/BI system. All of these steps tie back to the business requirements. Each chapter describes the practical steps in the context of the SQL Server 2005 platform.

Intended Audience

The target audience for this book is the IT department or service provider (consultant) who is:

• Planning a small to mid-range data warehouse project;
• Evaluating or planning to use Microsoft technologies as the primary or exclusive data warehouse server technology;
• Familiar with the general concepts of data warehousing and business intelligence.

The book will be directed primarily at the project leader and the warehouse developers, although everyone involved with a data warehouse project will find the book useful. Some of the book’s content will be more technical than the typical project leader will need; other chapters and sections will focus on business issues that are interesting to a database administrator or programmer as guiding information.

The book is focused on the mass market, where the volume of data in a single application or data mart is less than 500 GB of raw data. While the book does discuss issues around handling larger warehouses in the Microsoft environment, it is not exclusively, or even primarily, concerned with the unusual challenges of extremely large datasets.

About the Authors

JOY MUNDY has focused on data warehousing and business intelligence since the early 1990s, specializing in business requirements analysis, dimensional modeling, and business intelligence systems architecture. Joy co-founded InfoDynamics LLC, a data warehouse consulting firm, then joined Microsoft WebTV to develop closed-loop analytic applications and a packaged data warehouse.

Before returning to consulting with the Kimball Group in 2004, Joy worked in Microsoft SQL Server product development, managing a team that developed the best practices for building business intelligence systems on the Microsoft platform. Joy began her career as a business analyst in banking and finance. She graduated from Tufts University with a BA in Economics, and from Stanford with an MS in Engineering Economic Systems.

WARREN THORNTHWAITE has been building data warehousing and business intelligence systems since 1980. Warren worked at Metaphor for eight years, where he managed the consulting organization and implemented many major data warehouse systems. After Metaphor, Warren managed the enterprise-wide data warehouse development at Stanford University. He then co-founded InfoDynamics LLC, a data warehouse consulting firm, with his co-author, Joy Mundy. Warren joined up with WebTV to help build a world class, multi-terabyte customer focused data warehouse before returning to consulting with the Kimball Group. In addition to designing data warehouses for a range of industries, Warren speaks at major industry conferences and for leading vendors, and is a long-time instructor for Kimball University. Warren holds an MBA in Decision Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and a BA in Communications Studies from the University of Michigan.

RALPH KIMBALL, PH.D., has been a leading visionary in the data warehouse industry since 1982 and is one of today's most internationally well-known authors, speakers, consultants, and teachers on data warehousing. He writes the "Data Warehouse Architect" column for Intelligent Enterprise (formerly DBMS) magazine.

Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

Brian Knight, Erik Veerman, Grant Dickinson, Douglas Hinson, Darren Herbold

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Editorial Review:

• The new edition of the successful previous version is 25 percent revised and packed with more than 200 pages of new material on the 2008 release of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• Renowned author Brian Knight and his expert coauthors show developers how to master the 2008 release of SSIS, which is both more powerful and more complex than ever
• Case studies and tutorial examples acquired over the three years since the previous edition will contribute to helping illustrate advanced concepts and techniques
• New chapters include coverage of data warehousing using SSIS, new methods for managing the SSIS platform, and improved techniques for ETL operations

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (Solid Quality Learning)

Itzik Ben-Gan, Lubor Kollar, Dejan Sarka

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Pedantic 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

The MS SQL books have dramatically risen in quality in a few short years. When SQL 7 and 2000 were released, there were may be 1-3 book which were truly outstanding. For SQL 2005, however, there are at least 5-10 books which are truly worthwhile and this is one of them.

The reason why the quality of books has risen is the expertise of the authors. For this book, the authors are either MS SQL MVP or have been involved with the creation of MS SQL at Microsoft.

Generally speaking, the book has high level expert description of the underlying MS SQL 2005 architecture and T-SQL commands. But it lacks a nice flowing writing style which hempers the understanding to a willing reader. This book is an another example of authors who are inept at explaining the subject matter which they are an expert much like a professor who can't teach.

I also felt some parts of the book were sloppy or not as detailed. For example, the authors state that one of the steps of T-SQL query tuning is the need to correlate wait stats with problematic queries. Yet they never provide an adequate example (other than providing a useless query of SYS.DM_OS_PERFORMANCE_COUNTERS table) of how to connect wait stat with a specific transaction. This is a huge missing link.

PROS:
1)Awesome details on Indexes and Query plans
2)Solid advice on how to improve T-SQL for better performance.

Cons:
1)Not for the beginners. The book goes straight to the harder subjects (PIVOT, APPLY, complex joins etc).
2)Does not cover simple or fundamental subject matters.

Editorial Review:

This thorough, hands-on reference for database developers and administrators delivers expert guidance on sophisticated uses of Transact-SQL (T-SQL)—one of the most familiar and powerful programming languages for SQL Server. Written by a T-SQL guru, this guide focuses on advanced querying techniques and how queries are interpreted and processed by the SQL Server execution engine. You’ll get in-depth coverage of the sophisticated uses of T-SQL, including the differences between logical and physical processing, nesting of queries, and much more. The book explains and compares solutions to database-development problems in both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005, discussing the new T-SQL programming features added to SQL Server 2005 in detail. Includes extensive code samples, table examples, and logic puzzles to help database developers and administrators understand the intricacies and help promote mastery of T-SQL

Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Microsoft Sql Server)

Brian Larson

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Editorial Review:

The Definitive Guide to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services

Create and deliver data-rich reports across the enterprise using this complete server-based reporting solution. Written by a member of the original Reporting Services development team, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services covers the entire report-building and distribution process, including data extraction, integration with desktop and Web applications, and end-user access. The book explains how to maximize all of the powerful features, including the new Tablix data format, as well as enhanced performance, scalability, and visualization capabilities.

• Install, configure, and customize SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
• Create SELECT queries to extract data
• Generate reports from the Report Wizard and from scratch
• Add charts, images, and gauges
• Build reusable report templates
• Use the new Tablix data format to create reports with any structure
• Export reports to Word, Excel, PDF, HTML, XML, and other formats
• Enable end-user access to reports via the Report Server and its Report Manager web interface

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals (PRO-Developer)

Itzik Ben-gan

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Editorial Review:

This essential reference is designed for database developers and administrators who need to write queries and develop code using Transact-SQL (T-SQL), the Microsoft implementation of the standard SQL language. Guided by SQL Server guru Itzik Ben-Gan, you'll walk through the steps for writing queries, including retrieving and modifying data, with an overview of programmable objects supported by SQL Server 2008. Rather than focusing just on the syntactical elements of T-SQL, however, this book explains the logic behind the language - helping you develop a true, core understanding of the elements and how to use them. You will learn to think in terms of sets, and follow real-world best practices for T-SQL programming. To complement the learning experience, the book provides exercises to practice and apply what you've learned. And you'll examine recommended solutions to compare with your own work. The entire book's code samples will be available for download from the companion Web site.