Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed Book Review

Another Unleashed behemoth!!! It is a whopping 1550 of printed pages and 2451 pages when you include the additional chapters available on the companion CD. If this book doesn’t contain the information you need about SQL Server 2008 R2, then you probably won’t find it anywhere. Just like I am not a server administrator, I am not a Database Administrator (DBA). I don’t want to be a DBA, nothing against DBAs, but I just think it is a full time job. It is not possible for me to keep up with my .NET Software Architecture skills and also be an effective DBA. Of course I have to be familiar enough with them to architect scalable, secure, high performing software, so I chose this book as my learning resource. It is a great resource. I have not gone too it and come away disappointed yet. What does make this nice is there is a lot of developer content included with the book in addition to the DBA topics. The book is broken down into 8 parts. Below is the entire Table of Contents- Part I Welcome to Microsoft SQL Server 1 SQL Server 2008 Overview 2 What’s New in SQL Server 2008 3 Examples of SQL Server Implementations Part II SQL Server Tools and Utilities 4 SQL Server Management Studio 5 SQL Server Command-Line Utilities 6 SQL Server Profiler Part III SQL Server Administration 7 SQL Server System and Database Administration 8 Installing SQL Server 2008 9 Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 10 Client Installation and Configuration 11 Security and User Administration 12 Data Encryption 13 Security and Compliance 14 Database Backup and Restore 15 Database Mail 16 SQL Server Scheduling and Notification 17 Administering SQL Server 2008 with PowerShell 18 SQL Server High Availability 19 Replication 20 Database Mirroring 21 SQL Server Clustering 22 Administering Policy-Based Management Part IV Database Administration 23 Creating and Managing Databases 24 Creating and Managing Tables 25 Creating and Managing Indexes 26 Implementing Data Integrity 27 Creating and Managing Views in SQL Server 28 Creating and Managing Stored Procedures 29 Creating and Managing User-Defined Functions. 30 Creating and Managing Triggers 31 Transaction Management and the Transaction Log 32 Database Snapshots 33 Database Maintenance Part V SQL Server Performance and Optimization 34 Data Structures, Indexes, and Performance 35 Understanding Query Optimization 36 Query Analysis 37 Locking and Performance 38 Database Design and Performance 39 Monitoring SQL Server Performance 40 Managing Workloads with the Resource Governor 41 A Performance and Tuning Methodology Chapters on the CD Part VI SQL Server Application Development 42 What’s New for Transact-SQL in SQL Server 2008 43 Transact-SQL Programming Guidelines, Tips, and Tricks 44 Advanced Stored Procedure Programming and Optimization 45 SQL Server and the .NET Framework 46 SQLCLR: Developing SQL Server Objects in .NET 47 Using XML in SQL Server 2008 48 SQL Server Web Services 49 SQL Server Service Broker 50 SQL Server Full-Text Search Part VII SQL Server Business Intelligence Features 51 SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 52 SQL Server Integration Services 53 SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Part VIII Bonus Chapters 54 Managing Linked and Remote Servers 55 Configuring, Tuning, and Optimizing SQL Server Options 56 SQL Server Disaster Recovery Planning Almost every chapter begins with a section that covers what is new in SQL Server 2008. There are a ton of diagrams that are really helpful with learning the topics, and a ton of great tables that help to summarize topics. The thing I like most about this book is the quantity of information about profiling, tracing, monitoring, and performance. There is a whole chapter on locking!!! The authors writing style makes it an easy to read book, or at least as easy as server reading can get. The code downloads (as well as the ones on the CD) are a little mixed up. They are all there and usable, but you have to do a little digging. If you are in anyway involved with SQL Server 2008 R2, you owe it to yourself to get this book. It will not leave my side!!!! I highly recommend this book for DBA's, developers, and architects.