Customer Reviews

SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine

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

 

 

Excellent is the word.... great book.... We miss Ken Henderson.... only you could make this possible...

He was the real GURU for all guru of sql server.......

SQLAuthority.com Book Review :
SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting: The Database Engine (SQL Server Series) (Paperback)
by Ken Henderson

Short Review :
Database Administrators can use this book on a daily basis in SQL Server 2005 troubleshooting and problem solving. Answers to SQL issues can be swiftly located using the index of this book.This book covers the topics and subjects which any other books, blogs or websites (including MSDN, BOL) do not cover. This book provides DBAs with solutions which can be used by user in highly dynamic environments to resolve common and specialized problems. This book tells user what to do when something goes wrong with SQL Server 2005. This book is an edge case, but is something that can make the difference between a SQL Server application meeting customer needs and it going down in flames. This book is a good place to begin troubleshooting expedition.

Detail Review :
This book will not teach you basic T-SQL from basic and it is not easy and interesting training text book. This book is more like guide to save the troubled time. This book must be read by all the DBA before hand to know what kind of bad (worst!) situation can arise and how this book can be used to prevent the situation or fix it if it has already happened. The authors obviously knows the product very well from inside out, many of the authors are working for Microsoft or MVP. The authors communicate the the topic very well, many places there is lots of code dump, however that is appropriately justified looking at the content covered in the book and direction of the topic taken in the book. The Authors unveils the secretes of SQL Server 2005 internals. We can easily understand how the SQL Server 2005 is working, which helps when something goes wrong.

This book contains many interesting topics. Regular readers of my blog knows that my favorite subject is data corruption and recovery and server crashes and other critical failures. I enjoy writing and researching SQL Server errors and their resolution. It is extremely important to know the common errors and their solution. This book covers errors in depth and in detail. This book tries to cover many subjects in 480 pages, which makes sometime book little heavy to read.

The book covers complex subject very easily and in simple words. For example,
"Last Known Good - When was the last time DBCC CHECKDB reported no errors for this database? SQL Server 2005 saves in the database information about the last time a DBCC CHECKDB was run without errors on the database."
"Run DBCC FREEPROCCACHE. This clears the procedure cache of any cached plans that are not currently in use."
"No matter how accurate the planning or estimate is, you might still run out of space in production. The best practice here is to set up the SQLDiag service to constantly monitor the production system and take action before you run out of space."

This book comes up with CD which contains some useful software (SQL Nexus; TraceBuster, DataDemon) and sample code of the book. I have yet to try the software myself.

Rating : 4 and 1/2 stars

In Summary, This should be a standard book on most DBA's desktops.

Pinal Dave
Principal Database Administrator
[...]

This book really explains what you expect from it.
it is worth to read and as it sounded it has all kinds of real time scenarios and examples. even in some cases it pin points the problem
it is a book on office desk, when ever you need it you can go over and use the appropriate guidelines , its really worth to read

Hi,

I've read several reviews by people who said they were disappointed Henderson wasn't the author of all portions of this book. Since I read the reviews before hand, I wasn't surprised or disappointed. Granted Henderson is a great expert and his hand was missed - but the technical knowledge stored within the text of this book is great. You can pretty intimately learn tons about the SQLOS. I suspect I'll have to reread the book a few times in order to fully commit what I've read to memory as there is just a lot to take in. Thankfully, once you pass the material once it does seem intuitive and certainly makes a lot more sense of things. The different authors for various sections can be somewhat annoying as they can repeat some previously shared tips/information, but its not that bad of a detractor. I would definitely recommend purchasing the book to anyone wanting to learn more about internals.

Cheers,

The authors of this book are very knowledgeable about the SQL 2005 architecture. No doubt, their explanations of SQL 2005 and its architecture are of high level and that makes this book worth reading for those who want to expand their MS SQL knowledge.

As with many books with several authors, the book lacks a pinpoint focus. Namely, the book lacks focus on the troubleshooting SQL issues. The book is great on SQL architecture and diagnosing problems. But the book is rather skimpy on the actual troublehshooting methods. For example, on a chapter on troubleshooting Master database corruption, the author writes the following about Master database recovery (not restore):

"The steps to use setup to rebuild master are actually well documented in SQL Server Books Online...so I don't list them here. an important point for you to keep in mind is that after rebuilding master, you must apply any service packs.."

I don't think anyone buys SQL books to tell them to read the SQL Books Online. Ironically, the same author goes to great lengths to explain how to diagnose Master database problems and how to choose which methodology to fix it.

The same issue exists throughout most of the book.

But I am being very critical. I woudld give this book 4.5 stars for its depth of coverage and functional and theoratical expertise of the authors.

This book contains articles and code examples that are very handy, especially to those of us who are transitioning from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005. I am a fairly new DBA and have much to learn, but this book opened the door to some more advanced topics (index statistics and execution plans for example) and described the differences between how SQL 2K and SQL 2005 handle the same issues. Highly recommended.

The cd is missing the code from book.
The author/publisher is ignoring my email.

The book is well written, contains lots of description for troubleshooting of complex problems. I think the book is one of "better to have" for every good MSSQL DBA.
I like sections about memory management, query optimizator, backup and recovery - and every chapter in the book contains lots of valuable information.
Also the book written in good and easy to understand English - there are no (or few) of complex grammatic which may make reading hard for foreigners.

The book itself is not bad. However not getting the accompanying materials is a major pain. Instead of an accompanying CD, they tell you to go to a web-site to download the materials. Except the materials are not on the web-site - there is no way to contact them about it - just a general runaround. MAJOR PROBLEM!!!

I cannot believe how much you get for your money with this book. Very informative.