Book Review–Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Administration Cookbook

 

Brief Review:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Administration Cookbook is a collection of recipes that help database administrators with day-to-day tasks.  The recipes from this book have a broad spectrum of topics, including  Piecemeal Restores, Optimistic Concurrency, Data-Tier Applications, Master Data Services, Replication, Multi-Server Management, Utility Control Point etc..  This book is a great reference on how to accomplish daily administrative tasks and challenges.

Detailed Review:

There are few books available that can keep your technical curiosity engaged, while presenting the information in a easy to understand manner.  Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is one such book.  This book delivers quality content in a simplistic manner that will benefit all database administrators.  My favorite thing about this book is that it delivers real world solutions to real world problems.  In today’s IT environment, the database administrator can be a seasoned IT professional with 10 to 20 years of database experience, or what some people call an accidental DBA.  An accidental DBA is a database administrator that assumes the role of database administrator, either through necessity or circumstance, and usually has little to no real world experience as a database administrator.  This book caters to both the seasoned and the accidental database administrator. 

As the name implies, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Administration Cookbook focusing on the administrative side of SQL Server.  This book contains over 70 quality recipes that database administrators can use in their day-to-day duties.  The great thing about this book is the diversity of the recipes.  The author does a great job of covering SQL Server administration from a lot of different angles using different immerging technologies.  The recipes include Resource Governor, Multi-Server Administration, Business Intelligence, High Availability and more.  There is an enormous amount of information spanning a broad spectrum of topics. Without sounding cliché, there is something for everybody, in this book.

The author’s writing style is clear and concise.  You do not have to be a Microsoft Certified Master to understand the fundamental concepts presented in each recipe.  Another thing I like about this book is the code samples.  I cannot tell you how many times I have cracked open a book and have to analyze and reread the code sample to understand what it is doing.  This book does not have that problem. The code samples are very easy to understand and follow.  By keeping the samples simple, the author delivers a better experience to the reader.

My favorite chapters in this book are Chapter 7 – Managing The Core Database Engine, Chapter 5 – Managing Core SQL Server 2008 R2 Technologies because these chapters contain a lot of useful information that a lot of database administrators do not know about, including Utility Control Point, SQL Azure, StreamInsight, and Master Data Services. 

The Verdict: 5/5

I recommend Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Administration Cookbook to any IT Professional currently working as a database administrator or wants to get into database administration, with SQL Server 2008 R2.  This book is a great administrative reference that you will want to keep close to your desk, regardless of experience level.