Overview
Now with row-level locking, auto-grow databases, terabyte capability, and the most powerful I/O and administration toolset ever, SQL Server 7 is the database for the next century! The SQL Server skill set is in high demand - and whether you're an experienced DBA or just starting out, this complete reference teaches you everything you need to know to install and use SQL Server 7. Author Gayle Coffman - a Senior Database Administrator with over 17 years of experience - guides you through the entire SQL Server 7 database from its basic architecture through its feature-rich tools, and beyond. As you follow clearly written steps and real-world examples, you'll gain the skills needed to revolutionize data management within your organization.Editorials
Bill Carmada
Microsoft calls SQL Server 7 a "defining release," and that's not just blowing smoke. They've almost totally rewritten the product. They've added tons of new features. They've simplified and streamlined the database engine and other key components-and the early buzz is they've succeeded at souping up performance pretty substantially. SQL Server 7 supports terabyte-size databases, offers nifty new data warehousing tools and more efficient Internet connectivity.Plus, there are plenty of new Microsoft-style wizards designed to simplify administration-and they do. But, as always, the Wizards only take you so far, and you wouldn't want to be left stranded where they drop you off. Which brings me to the point of this review. SQL Server 7: The Complete Reference. When it comes to SQL Server 7, this book won't strand you anywhere.
The book is authored by Gayle Coffman, an SQL Server DBA at Microsoft who's responsible for 300 NT servers and 4,000 databases in Microsoft's Database Operations Group. She knows her stuff. And whether you're migrating to SQL Server 7 from someone else's database software or you're one of the two-million-plus current SQL Server users looking to upgrade, she'll make sure you do, too.
Coffman begins with a comprehensive overview and welcome to SQL Server 7-what it is, how it came to be, and where it's headed. You'll review Microsoft's architectural improvements, including the Microsoft Management Console's "snap-in" architecture which enables third-party developers to enhance or customize SQL Server's management tools; new replication capabilities for data warehousing.
Coffman introduces Microsoft's goodie-bag full of TCO stuff aimed at "reducing, simplifying, and eventually eliminating" many classic DBA responsibilities. Needless to say, this halcyon "no-DBA" era hasn't yet arrived (ain't no such thing as Zero Administration anything!) You DBAs will be busy for a while yet, and Coffman explains exactly what you'll be busy doing.
To start with, Coffman offers expert guidance on installing SQL Server, SQL Mail, and SQL Connectivity tools-and lots of guidance on upgrading from earlier versions of SQL Server. Coffman reviews Microsoft's new automated tools for converting from Oracle or Sybase, walking you through the conversion process and showing what the tools can and cannot do.
There's great up-to-the-minute coverage of database maintenance, backup, remote servers, performance monitoring, tuning and optimization. You'll also find essential information on how SQL Server 7 integrates with Windows NT to provide welcome security improvements.
SQL Server 7 offers a plethora of features intended to promote scalability "from the laptop to the enterprise using the same code base," in the words of Microsoft's marketing department. Along these lines, Coffman covers SQL Server 7's support for terabyte databases, multiprocessing, row-level locking (about time, guys) and its new disk formats for rows, extents, data files and log files.
You'll find detailed coverage of SQL Server 7's new paradigm for data storage. Gone is the device paradigm that permitted multiple databases per physical file; now a single database can reside in multiple files. Coffman shows how to make the most of all these changes to maximize both performance and capacity.
SQL Server 7: The Complete Reference contains a valuable introduction to database programming with Transact-SQL (plus a 300-page SQL command reference at the back of the book.) And since you've got to design your database before you can program it, there are chapters on database design, database integrity, indexing, working with very large databases and more. Did I mention there's detailed coverage of Web applications, too?
Whatever your goals or experience, if you're deploying or managing SQL Server 7, you'll be a whole lot more effective with Gayle Coffman on your side. Bill Carmada @ Cyberian Express