Customer Reviews

Microsoft® SQL Server(TM) 2000 High Availability

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

 

 

I had to say something here. Everyone got so used to everything being easy in windows, they don't want to hear about also having to know what their doing. Do you think running big available db's is a step-by-step process that Bill left out of the books online? One book can't teach you a college degree worth of information.

This book was right on track and the cluster and log ship info just isn't anywhere else. I agree replication was light, but who runs repl for availability anyway? The book put some humor into a grim subject, so it comes across not so serious, but at least it wasn't boring or a reprint of books online. The last chapter had monitoring info you can't get anywhere else, and it was worth the price of the book. Take a look at the cd, there's some kick-A stuff on it, like what looks like another chapter on performance issues effecting uptime.

What some of you guys write here and in thse newsgroups just proves that Bill's worse problems are not in his software. If you're serious about software, you keep up with it. If Microsoft saw some use in trying to get the word out by printing a late book on sql and getting some big name writers to do it, then I'm reading it. Are you going to ignore it because of some guy off the internet? Remember we're talking availability here, so its not the million dollar question.

I'm giving the book four stars. It skimmed over some things it should of covered (like performance, operations, qa testing, handling heterogenous systems, and some other stuff) and it should be a series of books, not just one huge one. It wouldn't hurt if they could referenced non-microsoft books for some subjects that aren't software. Plus it should have more on running high availability systems without clustering or fancy hardware. Only some databases that have to be up all the time run on Enterprise Edition. But everyone will blame Bill if their system is down. Don't they know that by now?

This book is the fast track way to gain confidence in deploying a Microsoft SQL 2000 or 2003 Virtual Server.
Even if you have deployed SQL clusters, this book will probably have a few gems that you haven't seen.
The references to the 2003 Operating System are excellent.
The chapters on disk configuration, deployment and Service Packs are valuable in the real World.
The Authors have given you a complete process for rolling out a successfule SQL deployment. The fact is that planning and process are the key to a rollout and this book has that and the technical stuff we all love.
If you only buy one book on SQL and high availability deployment, this is the one.

I liked some things about this book:

cluster chapter
hardware coverage
Windows Server 2003 tidbits

I didn't like other things:

replication coverage - way to short to be useful. Doesn't tell much about high availability in relation to replicaton.

bad advice - several things they recommend even I know better than to do. I got to the point where I started ingoring the recommendations and just hunted for facts to help me form my own conclusions.

performance stuff -- its to weak and not discussed as much as it should be. I think you need to really go into performance issues when you talk about high availability because poor performance makes a system less available.

I guess the final word is that this is a decent book that you might want to get if SQL SERVER high availability is something you need to know about. Just don't expect a great book.

This book is great. It's loaded with recommendations that I have not seen in other SQL books and I've read at least a dozen of them. Even the backup modules cover more information than anything I've seen. Every DBA should read this and stop complaining about this or that not being covered. If you looking for replication than find a replication book. It's impossible to cover everything about availability in one shot and this one comes close.
Great stuff!!!

This book collates the experience of installing 'Real World' SQL virtual servers on Windows 2000 and Windows 2003.
Even if you have already deployed a SQL2000 clustered instance, there will be tips in this book for you.
There are numerous chapters including Disk configuration, Installation and Service Pack management.
As with any major undertaking, the book underpins the need for planning and research without forgetting the detailed technical stuff we all love.
The Knowledgebase articles referenced in the book make it that little bit easier to be confident that you are following Best Practise.

I just got this one and I found that while it has some good points its not really all I had hoped. A much better book is Inside SQL 2000. It covers much more about SQL which you need to know for keeping a system up and running 24-by-7.

This book collates the experience of installing 'Real World' SQL virtual servers on Windows 2000 and Windows 2003.
Even if you have already deployed a SQL2000 clustered instance, there will be tips in this book for you.
There are numerous chapters including Disk configuration, Installation and Service Pack management.
As with any major undertaking, the book underpins the need for planning and research without forgetting the detailed technical stuff we all love.
The Knowledgebase articles referenced in the book make it that little bit easier to be confident that you are following Best Practise.

More a collection of misc thoughts than really good info on high availability.

Has to be the worst Sql book I've wasted my money on. Absolutely horrible. Practically every chapter has some over generalization or plain bad advice. You get the impression that the authors haven't really ever deployed any of these systems they talk about so much. It appears they have very little time "in the trenches." On top of that, the writing is just awful. I had a real tough time just reading through it. If you want to find good info on Sql's high availability features, read the Books Online and *don't* waste your money on this book.

I got this one to help me with setting up a HA replication arch. To be nice about it the repl info in the book is anemic. Next to nothing about it. I'm not sure how I will use the book and Im pretty disappointed iwth it.