Mastering SQLServer 2000

Microsoft SQL Server isn't just the database that underlies a lot of organizational data stores, though it and its predecessors have always played that role. Microsoft's top-of-the-line database management system (DBMS) is very often the back end for custom software applications and Internet resources. All the more reason to absorb the wisdom that Mastering SQL Server 2000 contains. It's highly detailed and absolutely comprehensive in its treatment of how SQL Server 2000 works in terms of database management, administration, and (to a somewhat lesser degree) programming. Consider this book a thoroughly researched user's and administrator's manual, with a lot of programming information and some references (including a fine one on Transact-SQL thrown in as a bonus).

A lot of the database design information is pretty elementary: the authors point out, for example, that it's better for searching if your tables have separate fields for first and last names, rather than one unified "Name" field. But explanatory information about SQL Server 2000 itself--even, for example, its most obscure trace flags--is unrelentingly detailed. Better yet, the authors don't throw the details at the reader willy-nilly. They take time to explain not only how to use the feature under discussion, but also why you would want to do so and how you'd use it differently under various circumstances. That's why this book is so massive, and so valuable to someone who needs an authoritative book about SQL Server 2000. --David Wall

Topics covered: Everything you can do through the user interfaces of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and pretty much everything you're likely to want to do when programming for the server. The essentials of database design--tables, views, queries, indexing, stored procedures, and triggers--are followed by details on how to perform administrative duties like backing up data and managing users. Information of interest primarily to developers includes rundowns on SQL Namespace, Data Transformation Services (DTS), and Web integration.