Customer Reviews

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Performance Optimization and Tuning Handbook

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

 

 

I know Ken England well. Although his name is on the book he did not write it. He stopped writing books with his SQL Server 2000 Performance Edition. This all came as an unpleasant surprise to him as not only did he not write any new material for the 2005 book but he did not even get sent a copy of the book to proof.

He told me it's not great to see your name on a book you have neither written nor read but publishers apparently reserve the (legal) right to do this!

Up to this point, I have avoided reviewing this book because I don't like being negative, but this book has damaged Ken England's reputation and I would like to clear the air.

About 18 months ago the publishers offered me the opportunity to be technical editor for this new edition. I was flattered because I considered Ken's previous edition to be the best written on the subject. The publishers also requested my permission to reprint, on the back cover, a review I did of the previous edition. That tickled my ego as well.

After reading the draft, I was appalled at the gross errors of fact and, perhaps worse, the errors of omission in regard to the many important new performance tuning features of SQL Server 2005. I gave the publishers my opinion of the book and told them I could not be involved unless I could rewrite the new material entirely. They did not agree and found another technical editor.

To answer some of the points of contention in previous reviews of this book:

Despite the review from Adam Cassel questioning the truth of an assertion that Ken England did not write this edition, I can confirm that Ken England did not participate at all in the re-write of this book. He knew nothing about it until after it was published.

Gavin Powell did write the new material. His reply to the criticism in an earlier review is disingenuous. ("My most sincere and profuse apologies if you are finding things which are out of date. Please return the book to the retailer you purchased it from if it is too out of date.") He implies that the errors are leftovers from the previous edition that got overlooked in the update process. That is not true. Things are not "out of date", they are wrong and the errors are his.

I gave this book 2 stars instead of zero because Ken's core material is still in there and it is still worth reading. As soon as the previous version is out of print, this will be the only place you can find it.

Kurt

I found the book to be very disappointing. In the past I purchased the previous books for SQL Server 6.5 and SQL Server 2000. Both were excellent books, so when I saw that there is book for SQL Server 2005, I bought it immediately. Unfortunately I felt that this book is not as good as the previous books. The book is completely based on the 2000 version, with just few things that were added. It doesn't give you deep cover of many of the new tools and options that we have with SQL Server 2005 and sometimes it even writes about things that exist only for backwards compatibility with out even mentioning that there is a new way to get the information. For example - It gives a great explanation about DBCC Showcontig statement, and doesn't even mention the sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats DMV (If you look at BOL the first thing that it will write about DBCC showcontig is "This feature will be removed in a future version of Microsoft SQL Server. Avoid using this feature in new development work, and plan to modify applications that currently use this feature. Use sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats instead.").

One of the most important improvements of SQL Server 2005 was the Dynamic Management Views. The book hardly writes about the DMV. For example the book has a chapter about indexes. It didn't even mention sys.dm_db_index_XXXX and the sys.dm_db_missing_index_XXXX dynamic management views in that chapter. In my opinion if you write a chapter about indexes, you should include an explanation about those DMV.

Sometimes it even gives you completely wrong information. The explanation about set statistics xml is only 4 lines, saying that it just gives you the same information but in XML format (doesn't even says the same as what. Since this comes just after the explanation of set statistics time and set statistics io statements, I assume that the author meant those statements). In reality set statistics xml gives you much more information and it is one of the most important tools that we can use to optimize query.

While I wrote this review, I read 2 reviews saying that this book was not written by Ken England and Gavin Powell. I guess that this explains the hugh difference between there previous books and this book that just used there good reputation but apparently has nothing to do with them.

Adi

I emailed the Introduction person for this book questioning the comments in the first chapter about Clustering...This is the email from him:

>>Gavin

I didn't write the book with him. He wrote the first two editions. This his name is on the book. I updated the book for SQL Server 2005. I'm an Oracle tuning expert and a technical writer. The person who was assigned by the publisher to tech proof the title turned out to be a DB2 person, neither Oracle or SQL Server. I don't know why the publisher picked a DB2 person to tech proof the book. I tried to insist on a SQL Server 2005 tech proof person but the publisher failed to do this. My most sincere and profuse apologies if you are finding things which are out of date. Please return the book to the retailer you purchased it from if it is too out of date. The original versions written by Ken England were very well received.

Regards - Gavin Powell

>>Me________________________________________

From: Thomas L

Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 5:31 PM

Subject: RE: Clustering in book MS sql server 2005 - PerformanceOptimization & Tuning

Cannot find his email address anywhere in the book. If you wrote a book with him, I am sure you can find an email address for me.

Thanks,

Thomas

From: EZPowell H

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 8:05 PM

To: Thomas L

Subject: RE: Clustering in book MS sql server 2005 - PerformanceOptimization & Tuning

Please ask Ken Engloand this question. Thanks

Regards - Gavin Powell

________________________________________

From: Thomas L

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 4:31 PM

Subject: Clustering in book MS sql server 2005 - Performance Optimization & Tuning

The book makes comments about Clustering on Page 15 as not like a Hot Standby but "...provides more capacity and up-time by allowing connections and requests to be serviced by more than one computer in a cluster of computers." I do not see anywhere how SQL Server can do this. You can have a node in a cluster to fail over to another active server or passive server.

Please show me where this capability is in Books online or other reference material.

Thanks,

Thomas L

I decided to buy this book expecting the same quality, easy to read style and good information that you can find in the previous one.... big mistake! The SQL2000 Performance Optimization and Tuning is an awesome book that can't be compared with this one. In this book, you can not find any reference to DMV or new system tables to query performance problems (just a simple table listing them, no examples or exercises). Most references are for deprecated SQL2000 and some topics are covered or mentioned in just a few lines by author. It's horrible! ... a shame that Ken's name it's there; some people states that he never wrote this version, I do not know ... but does not match Ken's style and precision at all.

Do your self a favor and skip this one!

This book, somewhat suprisingly, is geared towards beginner to mid-level DBA. Ken England's previous book on MS SQL were very good and were perhaps the best books on MS SQL 2000 performance tuning. I can't say the same for this book.

This book, however, excels in explaining complex subjects to a beginner, or even a mid level DBA. Just don't expect this book to offer golden nuggets of information on indexes, locking, and transaction control as the first book does.

If you do not have in depth knowledge of indexes and how they relate to the T-SQL transactions, then this book will provide a good start. If you want a more in depth understanding, then I would suggest Ken England's excellent previous book ( SQL 2000 Performance Tuning) which is still relevant to SQL 2005 performance tuning.

Pros: Good basic explaination of indexes, joins, and locking

Cons: Most of the subjects and explaination are redundant if you are already intimately familiar with the basics of MS SQL performance tuning.

I found this book an enjoyable read, (if you can say that about a SQL Performance Tuning book). It was not like reading a 'SQL cookbook' or a training text book. It was more of a self-improvement book. It showed you the basics, discussed how they related to one another and helped to change way I thought about tuning and the way I attacked the task of optimizing my SQL 2005 servers. This is a must for anyone who works with data warehouses, multiple server enviroments and any type of BI on a daily basis.

How can this be possible? I don't believe this story. Essentially, you are claiming, and by stating you know Ken and spoke to him that Ken is claiming, a man who has written two books, and is at least as smart as the average lawyer or publishing agent, was duped into a contract with a publisher, at some point contingent with, or subsequent to, writing one or both of his other books, that allowed his name to be used as the author of any forthcoming book the publisher wished to put out without his knowledge or permission and without his receiving any remuneration for said "rogue" book? That is total BS. There is something going on here, but it is not what you claim. I tell you, I think Ken needs to and owes people a full explaination of the circumstances surrounding this book if only to set things straight. If this is even remotely true, that his name was used without his knolwedge, permission, and that he is receiving no remuyneration for sales related to this book, he needs to make a comment here online as he can freely do. Elsewise, this is BS and Ken is in some way complicit in this fiasco or mythology you are creating.