Purba’s book, “intended for a technical audience of practitioners,” describes the use of the Sybase SQL server system 10 in client/server computing systems. The book provides an alternative to the ten or so volumes of technical documentation with which Sybase is delivered and provides an overview of the product in a single readable volume.

There is a bit of everything in this book. The author discusses client/server applications; the architecture of Sybase; Structured Query Language (SQL), the standard query language for relational databases; Transact-SQL (Sybase’s extended version of SQL); and many Sybase specifics such as stored procedures, triggers, and system procedures.

The book is well written, well organized, and nicely illustrated, but several factors may limit its audience. First, it is very much a book on Sybase and would be nearly useless to someone who is working on another relational database management system, such as Oracle or DB2. The architecture, the system procedures, the host language interface, the installation, and the Transact-SQL extensions are all unique to Sybase. Second, I would be reluctant to recommend this book as an introduction to Sybase or as an introduction to relational databases. If someone has taken a class and wants an overview of the product that puts everything into perspective, this book may be appropriate. For someone unfamiliar with basic concepts, however, the book may be too ambitious. For example, the third chapter, on Sybase architecture, would leave someone cold if they did not already have some concept of a database management system architecture. Third, the focus of the book is a little unclear. It begins with a discussion of client/server computing and goes on to discuss SQL, which suggests a focus on application development. On the other hand, the discussion of architecture, system procedures, and installation suggests a focus on the database administrator.

These unavoidable faults do not seriously mar this ambitious book. The corresponding Sybase documentation fills many notebooks and is not nearly as readable or well illustrated. Several years ago, when I was a database administrator for a Sybase database, I was often asked if there was a single book that provided both an introduction to the product and an overview of its capabilities. At the time there was no such book. I believe that this book now meets that requirement and meets it well.