25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Productivity in a Book, July 29, 2009
This review is from: Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)
Most of the Wrox collection of books I have I would rate fairly high on the star scale. Knight's 24-hour trainer is not different in that assessment. The book purports itself as a beginner to productive user of SQL Server 2009 Integration Services in 24 hours.
That's a tall order given the nature and scope of Integration Servers. I have worked with various members of the SQL Dev team from time to time and they confide, that this seems to be the one area that developers lag in their knowledge. Which is a shame, because getting the data into and out of a database is one of the most critical tasks.
I approached reading the book with an open mind as I was, like others, limited in my knowledge and use of Integration Services. The book is well laid out starting out with discussing how Integration Services is structured. Following are a series of small focused lessons and exercises to take one through the key features and utilities within SSIS. This book will not make you the ultimate guru on SSIS, however it will as advertised:
1) Give you a solid understand of how SSIS is structured and operates
2) Provides you enough training to meet the 80/20 rule head-on making you productive while your reading the text.
I would strongly recommend the book to anyone that works with SQL Server
Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Knights 24 Hour Trainer)
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strengths outweigh flaws, January 14, 2010
This review is from: Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)
I picked up this book when I needed a crash course in SSIS for a work project. While it does have some significant flaws, the book has many strong points, and in the balance I believe the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. I can't recall ever having read a book that is simultaneously so good overall yet so plagued with annoyances.
Strengths first:
* The book does a great job in the arrangement of its subjects. You can start knowing nothing about the subject, and in very little time you come out with a solid base of understanding. Also, the pacing is terrific: the stuff you'll do the most hands-on, day-to-day work with come first, with the lesser-used stuff coming later. Skimming is easy and worry-free: the book doesn't hide important bits of info within a morass of excess words, or in the middle of a handful of topics of little or no use/interest to the reader. Wrox's propensity for wordiness is thankfully absent here.
* The book can be completed in 24 hours of work. A far cry from the "Learn X in 24 Hours" books that were once so popular!
* Each lesson is just long enough, and the hands-on lessons are pertinent, focused, and otherwise implemented extremely well.
* The video lessons are reasonably helpful, once you get past their weankesses.
Now, the weaknesses:
* The book has many errata, few of which are noted on the book's website. And as of this writing, you can't submit errata on Wrox's website unless you are registered with Wrox... and the website's registration page is broken. And you can't submit a problem report about the registration page because you need to be registered in order to submit the problem report. Thankfully, most of the errata are easily overcome by most readers, and no error was so signifcant as to render the lesson unusable.
* The videos have some significant production issues. First, the resolution on the video is so poor that in many cases it's impossible to read any of the text shown in screen shots, even if you enlarge the video player. Second, the audio leaves much to be desired. The narrator of the first 25 or so lessons apparently had a head cold when he did the recording; his enunciation is awful and a few of his mispronunciations (such as saying "arrigit" for "aggregate") are jarring. The second narrator is better in that regard, but he speaks so quietly that you have to really jack up the volume of the playback -- at which point you can hear all the traffic that was passing by the office where the recording was done. These problems, combined with the clunky UI and ugly, dated graphics, make the DVD seem amateurish.
So, would I recommend this book? Yes, very much so. The text and the approach of the book are so good that they overcome the problems posed by the DVD, and in the end, the book delivers admirably on its promise.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Introduction. The videos add a lot!, September 29, 2009
This review is from: Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)
I hadn't heard of SSIS until the week before I bought this book. This book gave me a broad overview with enough depth to get started. Now I'm using the software for actual work. Very worthwhile.
Couple of notes:
1) Not for SQL Server Express
2) Are you old-school? SSIS is the new Data Transformation Services
3) The book is for MS SQL 2008. I'm using 2005, and could follow along easily. Minor differences.
On another note, all computer books should have video. I can't tell you how helpful that was. They didn't spend a lot of time or money making the video. They just had something running that recorded their screen actions and voice, and let them zoom in. Then they basically just showed on screen what they were talking about in the book. It looks like they spent five or ten minutes per chapter. They make it look so easy, that from now on I'm going to consider anyone who doesn't include a video in a computer book to be lazy. In other words, they raised the bar. Authors, this is the new standard. It doesn't have to be expensive to be effective. Not perfect, just useful.
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