Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed at Dominant Systems Book Store

Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

Ray Rankins

Paul Bertucci

Chris Gallelli

Alex T. Silverstein

Includes full coverage of SQL Server 2008 in addition to R2 coverage

This is the industry’s most comprehensive and useful guide to SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2. It presents start-to-finish coverage of SQL Server’s core database server and management capabilities, plus complete introductions to Integration, Reporting, and Analysis Services, application development, and much more.

Four expert SQL Server administrators, developers, and consultants have packed this book with real-world information, tips, guidelines, and samples drawn from their own extensive experience creating and managing complex database solutions. Writing for intermediate-to-advanced-level SQL Server professionals, they focus on the product’s most complex and powerful capabilities, and its newest tools and features. For example, you’ll find invaluable information on administering SQL Server more efficiently, analyzing and optimizing queries, implementing data warehouses, ensuring high availability, and tuning performance.

The accompanying CD-ROM contains an extraordinary library of practical tools and information including sample databases and all code examples. Whether you’re responsible for SQL Server 2008 analysis, design, implementation, support, administration, or troubleshooting, no other book offers you this much value.

Understand the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 environment, R2’s newest features, and each edition’s capabilities
Manage SQL Server 2008 more effectively with SQL Server Management Studio, the SQLCMD command-line query tool, and Powershell
Efficiently manage security, users, backup/restore, replication, Database Mail, and database objects–from tables and indexes to stored procedures and triggers
Increase availability with clustering, database mirroring, and other features
Use new Policy-Based Management to centrally configure and operate SQL Server throughout the organization
Use SQL Server Profiler to capture queries and identify bottlenecks
Improve performance by optimizing queries, design more effective databases, and manage workloads with the new Resource Governor
Develop applications using SQL Server 2008’s enhancements to T-SQL and SQLCLR, .NET integration, LINQ to SQL, XML, and XQuery
Make the most of Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services–especially Microsoft’s new R2 reporting improvements
Improve data security using Column-level and Transparent Data Encryption

Ray Rankins, president of Gotham Consulting Services, has worked with Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server for more than 23 years and is coauthor of Sybase SQL Server Unleashed, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Unleashed. Paul Bertucci, founder of Database Architechs, has more than 30 years of experience in database design, architecture, replication, tuning, integration, and high availability. Chris Gallelli, president of CGAL Consulting Services, specializes in database administration, tuning, and programming. Alex T. Silverstein is managing principal and chief architect of Unified Digital Group, LLC, a developer of custom SQL Server and Microsoft .NET solutions.

CD-ROM includes:

15 additional chapters
Code samples, scripts, and databases utilized within the book
Free version of SQL Shot (performance & tuning software)

Category: Database / Microsoft SQL Server

Covers: Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2

User Level: Intermediate—Advanced

Customer Reviews & Comments
Microsoft keeps adding new functionality to SQL server so the latest version, SQL 2008 R2, has become vastly complex. So much so that Microsoft has divided up their DBA certifications into three specializations: core DBA and developer and BI. Correspondingly, technical books on SQL 2008 tend to be divided up along the same lines. Thus I would have thought it would be impossible to cover the whole in a single book. But this book attempts to do just that. And it does a pretty good job, in my opinion. Of course it cannot go into great depth on any one subject, but it goes into enough depth to be useful to a practicing DBA in any of the three categories. They manage it by making the book huge. So huge that, apparently, it can't all be printed in a single book. So when you buy the book, you get a book that is around 1700 pages (1550 pages of text and about 100 pages of index and 50 of front material) and in the back of the book is a CD that contains another 800 or so pages in PDF files. To put it in other words, the first 41 chapters are printed in the book, but chapters 42-56 are in digital format in the companion CD. So technically all of the chapters are in the book but only some of them are printed in the book. I have found that with many technical books, after you get the book, you have to hunt around on the internet for sample databases, code listings, sample files, etc., as if they hadn't finished developing the code till after the book was published. And in my experience this hunt too often ends, at the cost of too much of my time, with limited success or complete failure. It was a pleasant surprise to find that all of the code and samples referenced in this book are on the companion CD included in the back of the book. And the code is very handily organized by chapter and by specific listing. I didn't check all the code, but I looked up and tried numerous chunks of code that was of special interest to me and I didn't encounter a single example of code referenced in the book that was not on the CD and in identical format. Turning to the content of the book, it covers the basics - editions of SQL, installation, backup and restore, table structure, indexes, etc. In the CD is a section (chapters 42-50) for SQL developers that seems to hit all the important new stuff in SQL 2008. And there is also an impressive section of 3 chapters on the CD for BI including not only SSAS, but also SSIS and SSRS. But I focused more on the relatively new technology, especially the stuff I am interested in. I couldn't think of a single topic that was not covered, at least to some extent. I found the following were discussed in enough depth to be useful to me: transparent data encryption, table compression, auditing, resource governor, service broker, table partitioning, and the use of various DMVs. I examined and tested the code in all of these areas and found only one query that didn't work - Listing 24.22, which is supposed to return details on partitioned tables. I did not test it on their sample database, but on one of my own development databases that is partitioned. It required the change of only one variable, and I have considerable experience with partitioning, but couldn't get it to work. I must admit I didn't spend a lot of time trying to debug the query though. I found only one example of poor editing, and that was a case of repetition of the same several paragraphs of text on p. 29-30 and again on 42-43. In conclusion, I recommend this book as a useful resource for any type of SQL DBA to have on hand. It not only has useful discussions of almost every topic in the SQL 2008 R2 world, but it has a lot of useful code.

Back To Top