Customer Reviews

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-432): Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Implementation and Maintenance (Pro-Certification)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

The Microsoft Training Kit text for SQL Server 2005 exam 70-431 (for which Hotek was a contributor, but not primary author) is one of the best technical books I have ever come across. I have read every page at least twice, some sections several times. It covers a wealth of complex material in an organized, well-written manner. I hoped the SQL 2008 version would be an update of the SQL 2005 text, adding coverage for new or updated SQL 2008 features.

Alas, the SQL 2008 edition has been completely rewritten, with Hotek as the only author. I have read the first 100 pages and intend to read the entire text, but am not happy. The content is poorly organized, poorly edited and flat-out incorrect on some important points. (Errors regarding multiple instances were commented on by earlier reviewers. This error was not just stated once, but was repeated.) In more than one end-of-section mini-quiz, the questions are for material not covered in that section.

Hotek claims, more than once, to have worked on "millions of databases". Huh? If he worked on a different database every hour, and worked a ten-hour day for 300 days per year, that would total out to 30,000 databases a year, or 300,000 over ten years. Mike would have to have worked over thirty years to get close to his first million databases!

That said, Hotek is a really smart guy, with tons of SQL Server experience. His contributions to the SQL 2005 text were interesting and useful. Unfortunately, his expertise does not translate to authorship of books like this, and he has been poorly served by his technical editors (if there were any) at Microsoft Press.

NOTE: I submitted the above two-star review on March 19, 2009. I subsequently completed the entire book, some sections more than once, but found no reason to upgrade the rating, either for content or editing. Most of the questions on the Transcender practice exam cannot be answered using Hotek's book. My advice to those prepping for the 70-432 exam is to use the excellent text for the 70-431 exam, augmented by study of new SQL 2008 features like filestreaming and policies. Good luck!

I must say I was concerned about this book given the other comments - the only value appeared to be in the CD with the practice exams (the other recommended book "The Real MCTS SQL Server 2008 Exam 70-432" does not include practice exams). So I went ahead and purchased both books - "The Real MCTS..." for studying and this book for the Practice Exams.

What I discovered is that "The Real MCTS..." does not go into enough depth in a number of areas. Reading through the book and doing the exercises left me inadequately prepared. Running through the practice exams showed that I still had quite a bit to learn in some of the new/enhanced technologies (certificates/encryption, mirroring, partitioning). I have started going back to Mike Hotek's book - and have found (to my surprise given the negative comments) the information, explanations & exercises a great sight better than in The Real MCTS book.

Do not let the other reviews put you off. Even with the mistakes this book is way more worthwhile than it is made out to be.

Exam candidates using this book will quickly find it suffers from actual lack of technical content. Mike Hotek would have been better of spending less time talking about his experience and conquests over problems and more time giving actual examples of T-SQL that you can use against your own data. Also the sample questions do not cover nearly enough breadth of the chapter content, you get 1 or 2 summary questions per section, when there are lots of examinable facts just glossed over in the text. If you want to be able to wrote learn stuff its a very poor resource. You have to take the book and then get resources of the web, and real exams in order to fill up on the required content. Not recommended.

I want to start out by identifying myself. I'm a SQL DBA I've got around 8 years of experience, I've got my MCITP for SQL 2005 for Database Administration. So I've read the 70-431 book cover to cover and I can understand some of the criticism of this book, but will address that later.

I bought this book to train for the 70-431 test, I didn't upgrade my cert but choose to take 70-431 & 70-450. Now I studied the book like crazy, I made flash cards, I used the CD in the back of the book, but I did not rely on it. Anything that I felt was not flushed out as well as I liked I would study on MSDN, or great blogs like Paul Randal's. I read several white papers, and was able to use a lot of the knowledge in the work place, which re-enforced my studies..... And I passed the Cert test. Mike's knowledge of SQL Server is great, but there are a lot of sections where Deep Dives will reveal more detail and may even contradict what is written. But bottom line if you study the book, the concepts, and the practices, and know them inside and out then this book is enough to prep you for the exam.

If you want to be a SQL Rockstar, (Google Brent Ozar and SQL Rockstar and read his article), then this is a beginning and you have a lot more work to do. But that goes with a lot of things in life, if all you are willing to do is crack open this book, study it's questions, and do nothing more to prepare for this exam then you are missing a lot of SQL Server Knowledge and while you *might* pass the test you will be a so/so DBA, then that is your choice.

But Dear Reader it is up to you to get that knowledge and Mike does a great job of providing you a diving board to spring from. The question remains, how far do you want to go as a SQL DBA and how hard are you willing to chase it? A book is a book. The reader determines what is achieved with the knowledge they derive from the book.

IN COMPARISON TO 70-431

There is a review that states that this book is far inferior to the 70-431 book. And I would agree.

I would, however, like to point out that Microsoft has tried to specify the SCOPE of DBA training. Whereas 70-431 had to address DBA, Database Developer, and BI (until BI was later split out on it's own path), 70-432 only covers DBA items, and the scope of the exam is also narrowed.

So is 70-431 a better more inclusive book? Yes, but it should be.

It is like saying the Star Wars Trilogy is a more complete story than just Empire Strikes Back.

Yes it should be it is 3 movies not 1.

And yes 70-431 should be, it was meant to cover 3 subjects not 1 (even thoug it was weak on BI which is why they split it out).

This is a very Good book, and I recommend it to anyone who is studying to take the 70-432 exam.

Let's see, (pull's out check list)
Fan boy mentions of Paul Randal and Brent Ozar.....Check
Find a way to bring Star Wars into the conversation....Check

well I think that covers it I hope this review helps you decide if you will buy the book or not.

I've just passed the 70-432 exam and I waited for this to actually review the book. It is a good book after all. I read some negative postings here. Yes, it is true, there are some errors (both in the book and in the tests) and also some typos...But if you actually take your time and study the material and get over the typos, this book can really help you pass the 70-432 exam. This has been my first Microsoft certification, I have studied only this book and I took the exam at the first try. Again, you have to sweat a little bit for this...I love the way in which the material is organized. I didn't like the errors and the typos in there, so I'm going to give it 4 stars out 5.

It has taken me a while to come back and review this book. The reason it has taken so long is because there is not much positive to say about the book.

First, the book feels very poorly edited. By the time I was done reading the book, red pen in hand, I felt more like an editor than someone studying a subject. I bought the book to learn about SQL Server 2008 but even I was able to find several factual errors. The most annoying errors were the numerous places where you are asked to answer questions about subjects that had not yet been covered, and at times never covered. This was not only present in the book, but also in the practice software. Eventually, it seemed rather pointless to attempt the practice software until after reading the whole book, even though it allowed for chapter specific practice. Beyond that there were also more grammatical and composition errors than one would like to see in a textbook.

Second, this book throws a lot of information at you and it tries to explain what that information is good for; however, it often reads more like Microsoft's SQL Server Books Online than a teaching manual. This being the case there is little reason to buy what is given away for free.

What I did like about the book was the real life examples. Putting in a scenario to help you understand what can be done with what you are learning is great. I only wish the book had many more of these.

For the most part I trusted that the author knew what he was talking about, despite the errors. From reading the book I could tell that this guy knows his stuff, unfortunately, when I was finished I did not feel like that knowledge was passed on very well. This was after reading each chapter two and sometimes three times, plus taking notes.

In contrast, I just finished another Microsoft Press book, which I found immensely helpful, easy to understand, and with just one reading I retained 80% or more of the content. With that in mind I felt better about my assessment of this book. The difference is night and day.

Bottom line, I would not recommend this book. You can find a list of what you will be tested on from Microsoft's website, and from there you can use the Microsoft Books Online and some other Microsoft Press books to cover what you do not know.

As previous reviewers have already pointed out, there are a plethora of inaccuracies with the SQL Server 2008 edition comparisons in Chapter 1. For this, I'd suggest referencing Microsoft's edition comparison list at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/editions-compare.aspx

Other than Chapter 1, the information in this book is there but a bit thin. I also noticed the lesson reviews tend to "jump ahead", so to speak. For example, the lesson review for Chapter 6 Lesson 2 is on page 144. It gives a scenario about moving orders older than 30 days from the orders table with the least amount of performance hit. It's a 2 part answer and one involves the SWITCH operator. The book doesn't explicitly delve into SWITCH until Chapter 6 Lesson 4 (page 151).

The practice test engine, on the other hand, is one of the best I've ever seen from MeasureUp (their test engines are usually solid anyways). There were a lot of real-life scenario-type questions on there that were scarce in the book. It was also very good about pointing you to good reference materials for each question (some of which were obviously not the book). I took the exam yesterday and passed on the first try, but firmly believe it was the MeasureUp test engine that put me over the top.

In most cases, the practice exams are supplemental to the book. In this case, however, the book seems to be the supplement. Overall, I found this book to be okay at best. If you're wise, you'll do outside referencing anyways... while both on the job and studying. With that said, there's probably better material out there for 70-432. I must give this one an average review because the Chapter 1 epic fail, in particular, just cannot go unpunished :(

In Chapter 1 of the 70-432 Sql Server 2008 implementation and maintenance, it lists out the basic features of "all" versions of sql server, but it leaves out Enterprise.

For all editions, it says that multiple instances are not allowed, yet when i check on the official sqlserver 2008 site it tells me all editions support up to 16 instances except the enterprise version, which supports 50 instances.

Such simple facts wrong so early in the book. is this a sign of the quality of the rest of the book? has anyone else used this book yet? Im thinking of just sending it back if its that inaccurate.

Do not expect to use this book to pass the test. It covers things that are not on the test, and doesn't cover things that are on the test. I suggest looking at the "Skills Measured" listed for the 70-432 Exam, and search out the rest on your own (technet or the free videos on sqlskills.com seem to be more relevant). You can use this as a partial reference, but beware - it does not cover everything on the test, the "pointers" for what to expect on the test are wrong, the questions after each lesson for each chapter assume knowledge of subsequent chapters/lessons. In comparison to other "Training Kits," this is certainly not worth the money. I wish I could suggest another Book or "Training Kit," but unfortunately there's not much out there, and the "Reviews" on those alternatives aren't very promising.

The book and content are pretty good, however there seems to be too many mistakes for the author and publisher to have actually verified the content. The inaccurate chapter tests are a little troublesome. One answer indicated to use the sp_filestream_configure option to turn on filestreaming. This doesn't exist, you need to use sp_configure with the appropriate option! When configuring database options you may need to turn on advanced options (sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1). Also (and this is not an isssue with the book), I see that installation of the AdventureWorks sample database via the downloaded msi install is hit or miss. It was a miss for me. Instead I downloaded the scripts in the zip file, modified the sql script for the DW database and manually loaded it. I havn't tried the test engine yet, so I don't know how accurate that is. Hope this information helps someone. This book seems overall reasonably good in the chapter steps, just beware that you may have to wing it a bit here and there (what else is new in IT?). I'll try to put in another review if I pass (or not) the exam and how helpful this was towards that goal.