Administrator's Guide to SQL Server 2005

A Quick Guide for Experienced DBAs

Review by Brad M. McGehee

Administrator's Guide to SQL Server 2005
By Buck Woody
648 pages. Addison-Wesley Professional. $49.99.

In my opinion, when you write a book on SQL Server 2005, you really need to pick a particular area and focus on it. If you try to cover everything, then you end up with either a book that is too superficial, or a book that is way too long and boring to read. SQL Server 2005 is a huge topic, and it would take a dozen or more books to cover everything there is to know about this great database.

After reading Buck Woody's book, "Administrator's Guide to SQL Server 2005," I came away with the feeling that he tried to cover too much in a limited amount of space. In other words, he didn't target his writing. Because of this, the book tends to treat SQL Server 2005 superficially. At the same time, the author presumes that the reader already knows a little about SQL Server and database administration.

Here's what he covers in the book:

• Installation and Configuration.
• Architecture and Tools.
• Maintenance and Automation.
• Security.
• Monitoring and Optimization.
• High Availability.
• Notification Services and the Service Broker.
• Integration Services.
• Reporting Services.
• Analysis Services.

If you are a novice DBA, I can't recommend this book to you, as it leaves out a lot of fundamentals that you need to know. In addition, it will be hard to follow as the author assumes you already know some basics. It is also not written in a step-by-step tutorial style, which is important for beginning DBAs.

On the other hand, if you are an experienced SQL Server 2000 DBA, and want to get a quick overview of SQL Server 2005, then I would recommend this book to you.

SQL Server 2005 is different in many ways to SQL Server 2000, and requires that you devote a lot of study to master it. Because the book does cover many of the key new areas of the application, reading this book is a fairly good way to learn about the new features. But don't expect to learn about them in detail. The coverage of the topics is generally broad, without a lot of detail. But it does give you an overview, which is a good way to approach learning about a new application, especially one like SQL Server 2005, which has so many changes and new features.