Rating: 
Summary: The Best
Review: I have read around 12 SQL books. If there is a highly rated SQL book, I probably read it. Along with "Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optmization", this book is the best there is. This would be the book I will take with me if I had ended up in some isolated island with a SQL Server I had to manage. If you are some GUI button pushing SQL monkey, get this book fast and master its contents, only then you will become a real SQL DBA. One note, I also highly recommend "Inside SQL Server 2000" from Microsoft. But that book is not quite as comprehensive as this one.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: I have read around 12 SQL books. If there is a highly rated SQL book, I probably read it. Along with "Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optmization", this book is the best there is. This would be the book I will take with me if I had ended up in some isolated island with a SQL Server I had to manage. If you are some GUI button pushing SQL monkey, get this book fast and master its contents, only then you will become a real SQL DBA. One note, I also highly recommend "Inside SQL Server 2000" from Microsoft. But that book is not quite as comprehensive as this one.
Rating:
Summary: the best sql book in years
Review: I have read the book and I am recommending this to all of my students, both as a technical reference manual and for exam prep. The book contains a concise and easy to read explainations of all the main topics in sql 2000 with scripts and a cd to boot!
Brian Light MCT,CCNA,MCSE
Rating: 
Summary: A Rating More in Line with Reality
Review: I purchased this book based on all of the 5 star ratings it received. How could so many reviewers be so wrong? It is a decent book that covers all of the SQL 2000 topics you would expect, but it lacks detail on those topics. I was also disappointed in the lack of "extras", like hidden features or tricks/tips. I find it neither helpful as a training guide or as a reference book.
Minasi's Mastering NT/2000 is deserving of 5 stars and is the book that I use to judge other IT books. SQL Unleashed, unfortunately, falls short of that mark.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Life-saver!
Review: I recently inherited an over-due SQL Server 2000 upgrade project, which, it turned out, needed some serious rearchitecting of its data movement strategy. After struggling to find the information I needed in Microsoft's documentation and on Microsoft's tech support web site, I followed a colleague's recommendation and bought this book. The sections on DTS and replication not only laid out the answers I needed in easy-to-understand terms, but also provided examples that I was able to use right away (and learn a lot from!) I credit this book with saving my project!
Rating:
Summary: Easy to Read (therefore remember) and Very Well Organized
Review: I work as a Sql Server developer and DBA. SqlServer is a large application but because of the provided GUI is deceptively simple to get started with. However if your applications ever go into real production, then you (or someone in your organization) better become more than a beginner DBA. This book reads so easily and packs all the key info to become _proficient_ at administering (not application design/development-that is a different skill set) SqlServer. Concepts are balanced perfectly with keystrokes into well organzied and lucid explanations. The result is information that is easy to remember, because it is presented logically and succinctly. I am _very_ hard to please when it comes to tech books, but I would give this one 6 stars if I could. Especially useful in the move from 7.0 to 2000 version.
Rating: 
Summary: Basically the BOL regurgitated
Review: I would be surprised if you could find more than, say, 20% of this book that is not also in the online product documentation. It is far too general and shallow to be useful in the real world where most of us live.
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Basic Stuffs. No advnced Topics
Review: I would hardly call this book to be "Unleashed" book. It still does not unleash enough details about SQL servers, such as XML and .NET Platform. Examples are very basic. I would much appreciate books that have some practical step-by-steps rather than pages of illustrations.There were about one or two that I could actually use. I guess that's why they are publishing the second edition.
Rating:
Summary: A good ubiquitous source for dba's and developers
Review: I've spent quite a bit of time reading various SQL Server 2000 books at my local bookstore trying to evaluate which book I need. I'm a web application developer of content management systems, and custom web based tools and my primary systems are based on SQL2K. I wanted a book that covered as many of the topics that I needed information on, but at the same time went into enough detail to be useful. I mean you could get SQL 2000 High Availability which is like a 700 page book from Microsoft Press that talks nothing but high availability and nothing else. However I can't really justify spending on 4 or so books, and my job is not that of a DBA anyways.I'm very pleased with SQL Server 2000 Unleashed. It gives enough detail that I as a developer can take advantage of advanced features of MSSQL, understand more how the internals of MSSQL work which allows me to optimize my queries... and since I'm a one man team and have to take care of my database server, it provides best practices on maintenance, backup, indexing strategies, etc... I was also interested in learning more about high availability, what the options are, so that I can propose a solution and the options to my manager. My I.T dept was telling me to use Log Shipping for various reasons, a DBA from a sister company was recommending Fail Over Clustering for various reasons... I was bouncing back and forth on what to do, but after reading up on the high availability section in this book my questions were answered. Definitely an important read for those developing applications that use MSSQL for a DB, and an excellent reference for database administrators. Plus the wording isn't too dry. Hope that helps in your decision making. BTW the Microsoft Press book SQL SERVER 2000 HIGH AVAILABILITY is also an excellent book if you're a DBA and have to implement H.A in a large high transaction critical environment...
Rating:
Summary: If you really want to know the internals of database pages..
Review: If you really want to know the internals of database page structures, the chapter 30th of this book gives you all the details. By using the DBCC page, now it clarified a lot for me. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book! My rating is solely based on this chapter. Other chapters may not have the depth you need.
|
