Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000

To help you design Microsoft database servers that must achieve the best possible performance, Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000 has the details you need. For one thing, author Kalen Delaney (who used Ron Soukup's fantastic first edition as a starting point) explains how SQL Server 2000 works at a level that will interest all database administrators. She packs in the sort of minutiae that can make a real difference in the performance of especially large or complex data-storage structures, explaining what goes on inside the database management system (DBMS) when it's presented with various commands, and using that information to back up her abundant advice on the right way to design, build, and operate databases under SQL Server 2000.

Delaney makes extensive use of DBCC PAGE dumps to show what's going on in the databases that demonstrate concepts (incidentally, that utility is documented, as well as the others in the DBCC toolbox). In a typical section, DBCC PAGE is used to show how index pages work. There's careful attention to database structure at the byte level too, with conceptual diagrams that explain how pointers work and how strings of strings of bytes combine to represent stored data. It's the sort of detail you need if you'll be writing software for SQL Server 2000, or need to extract maximum performance from the DBMS itself. --David Wall

Topics covered: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 internals, especially data structures and the behavior of queries. Table design is emphasized, especially indexing decisions. Transact-SQL programming, including the use of cursors, gets lots of attention.