Hardly a pocket book
It clearly defies the title but does provide with very useful information. I am quite impressed. I have read this book as a pro. And is recommended only for pros.
Beginners please read something else first before you jump on this one.
A must have!
This handy pocket consultant is a must have for administrators and developers. It delivers exactly what is promised: a handy guide for daily administration. Out of all my sql server books this is the one I refer to the most.
Excellent resource for DBAs
SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Pocket Consultant is an excellent reference for DBAs and System Administrators planning to implement and maintain SQL Server 2005. While the book is written for Administrators, database developers will benefit from it as well. This one does a great job of laying it out in plain English. The focus is on daily administration tasks, and there's a heaping helping of SQL commands as well. Highly recommended.
EXCELLENT BOOK FOR ADMINISTRATORS AND DEVELOPERS
Sometimes when I read reviews people have written I wonder if they've actually read the book or simply thumbed through it in a bookstore or did a search of the pages. This is an excellent book and I've found it to be extremely helpful in setting up and configuring SQL Server 2005. This book isn't meant to be an allinone monster book, its a concise, focused book covering the core of SQL Server 2005, particularly for administrators but also extremely helpful for developers who are setting up sql boxes too. If you are developing databases for SQL Server 2005 you'll need a focused development book too especially if you are doing datawarehousing or datamart work or reporting services.
I got more out of this book's 548 pages than books nearly twice as big. The book has T-SQL examples throughout and I've used them for administration. The book has excellent coverage of SQL security, nearly 100 pages of security information covered in Chapter 3 "Managing Security, Access, and Network Configuration" and in Chapter 8 "Managing SQL Server 2005 Security". Excellent coverage of log shipping and database mirroring. The book covers schemas for administration perspectives but not in a database development perspective.
I used this book to gain a solid understanding of SQL Server 2005 setup, configuration and management. I refer to it all the time.
This is a great book for your everyday needs and I use it all the time. Highly recommended.
Basic things for beginners
This book is clearly targeted for the beginners and it is a good reference for them. Also, if you are an experienced SQL 2000 DBA/developer and want to get basic but neccessary information on SQL 2005 administration, this is an excellent book.
This covers most areas well except:
1)Security, user, and schema administration. This book's coverage is very scanty.
2)Replication: very basic coverage at best and it will not help you understand SQL 2005 replication very much.
3)Data Mirroring: this part is OK, except it doesn't cover it in details as it needs to.
4)Log shipping: Maybe half a page dedicated to it.
5)Clustering: no coverage whatsoever.
6)T-SQL: almost no coverage except for administrative matters ("alter database/table" etc).
7)Performance tuning: almost none.
(19 reviews)
