Customer Reviews

Accelerated SQL Server 2008 (Expert's Voice)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In support of a current project, I was searching for whatever books I could find to help me with SQL Server 2008. This is one of the first available "credible" books I found. Credible since I have a number of other APRESS technical books that I found useful, and credible since the authors list certainly fit the lead-in on the cover - "The Experts Voice in SQL Server".

I found this book to be exactly what the title says (Accelerated) and exactly what I needed for my project effort. Let me explain - I have a significant background in database administration, and had worked on literally hundreds of SQL Server 2000 related projects. But due to job focus on other responsibilities, my exposure to SQL Server 2005 was limited to a couple of projects. So when this high profile SQL 2008 project came along, I really needed something to quickly jumpstart my learning.

As I went through the installation and the configuration of the database engine, analysis services, reporting services, and integration services in my environments, I used all the associated chapters in this book. It gave me the pertinent information, the important differences and improvements, without bogging me down in the basic things I felt I already knew.

I felt that the first 13 chapters covering primarily the database engine and associated features - Installation, Policy, Availability, Performance, Security, Monitoring, Service Broker, Full Text Search, and TSQL enhancements were very complete and excellent resource for someone with experience looking for a jumpstart. I don't see myself buying another book to supplement this knowledge - forums and whitepapers will probably be all that I will need - in the short term at least.

I admit that I skimmed the chapter or two on .Net integration and programming assemblies - but I will be back to it in a couple of weeks to be sure.

Since this current project requires a good deal of XML based data integration between our existing world and this new application - the chapters on XML and XQuery were of particular interest to me. I found them a valuable and complete introduction. The next few months of the project will show how valuable this really was, but I came away feeling pretty good about what we might be able to do to leverage this.

Because my work for the past couple of years has been focused on BI, I went through those last three chapters covering Business Intelligence (analysis server, reporting services, integration services) multiple times. First to do the installation and configuration, second to see what I was that I missed, and a final time to understand what I thought the authors had missed. This section provides a good basic intro to the products, and gives you what you need to get them setup and functional. To exploit them however, you will need to look for further resources.

You can look at this book as a focused set of expert recommendations, advice, and key bullet points around its 3 major divisions - the Enterprise data platform (I rate it excellent in that coverage), development in SQL Server (I'd rate it good, but I know I need to read it again), and Business Intelligence (I'd rate it useful, but basic in the coverage).

What this book is not, is an in-depth and complete coverage of all the specifics of each of the SQL 2008 vertical product features. If your primary interest is in one of those features outside the database engine itself - Reporting Services or Analysis Services, you will need to follow this book up with one of the detailed and targeted books.

At the end of the day - this book gave me exactly what I needed, when I needed it. That makes it a good book in my view, a keeper for my top bookself, and one I can recommend to others in similar circumstances.

I saw this book come out, and had high expectations. The authors are all great guys who really know their stuff. What's more, Donald Farmer is _the_ guy for Data Mining, so I was hoping for a big section about the improvements in that area for SQL 2008.

Looking through it though, it feels like a book that was written for SQL 2005 that just got updated a little for SQL 2008, and that wasn't what I was wanting. And to boot, there are things that are just plain missing. There's not a single page on Data Mining, and some of my favourite features just don't appear. For Xmpl, in the FOR XML section, there's no mention of FOR XML PATH at all - which has to be the best way of using FOR XML.

However, I will still recommend this book. I will recommend this book to people who are moving from SQL 2000 and want to know what's new in both SQL 2005 and 2008, but there is a better reason again:

It's really honest! It's written by Microsoft guys, and they give really frank opinions about things. There are times when they happily point out that one feature or another isn't really as useful as it sounds. It's the kind of thing that more books need.

I've just finished reading the "Development in SQL Server" section of this book (i.e. 40% of the total book).

I assumed the book related solely to SQL Server 2008. The book's introduction, forward, back cover content, and free downloadable chapter 1 led me to that belief.

However, the book relates to both 2005 and 2008, and frustratingly it typically does not say what features belong to which database version.

I wanted a book that showed me what was new in SQL Server 2008, I know what is in 2005, I have several books on it! I think the publishers etc have been very misleading with this book's title.

That said, the content of the book is very good.

The book is large (784 pages) and heavy. A book containing SQL Server 2008 only content would perhaps contain only 300 pages, and be more convenient to read and carry.

The book's real title is "Accelerated SQL Server 2005 and 2008"

If you are interested in learning the SQL Server 2008 from ground up then this is not a book for you. If you already equipped with TSQL and other feature from the previous versions of the SQL Server then this book will take you to next level. Don't buy this book if you want to learn the Microsoft's premier database environment (SQL Server).

The coverage of SSIS/SSRS/SSAS is not bad. These intros will give you a good start into these technologies.

Do read the Contents before went on to buy this book.

I find myself referring to this book in the hopes that there is a section on my problem of the day. The mark of a good book is that the item I'm interested in appears in the index, and is explained to me by the author.

Unfortunately this book keeps disappointing me in this respect. I find that I look for information on common tasks (bcp, for instance, is a common sql server task for users and all this has is a screenshot of a command window with a bcp command typed in!) and find what looks like a checklist answer... "yep, bcp still exists!" with no depth or explanation of why it should be there.

I feel like this book is mostly a feature list and that for my work it was a mistake.

-Peter

I needed to get up to speed fast with SQL 2008 as we are migrating our entire infrastructure to windows 2008 products, this book helped me do it. There are many changes in SQL 2008 from new data types, high availability improvements, admin scripting with powershell, my favorite is intellisence is finally in the query windows. This book explained the newly redone reporting services well. It is nothing like the Reporting services in 2005. Good explanations of the new policy management feature in SQL 2008, as well as the linq to SQL. As a first book out of the gate it is a good overview. It allowed me to get my SQL 2000 and 2005 servers up to 2008 with minimal headache. Now we can concentrate on exploiting the new features.

This book simply describes in detail some of the new features in the 2008 version of SQL. Not an adequate book if you're looking for a more complete book on SQL Servers

I Know What I Saw

Arrived weeks earlier than was estimated and received very nice personal email from James Fox : )