To all those who think corporate data is difficult to tame, this book will come as a welcome relief. It is a comprehensive, in-depth review of almost every way to design, implement, and connect to efficient and reliable data sources. The author is now a freelance consultant, but used to work for Microsoft. Therefore, he knows first-hand about the products he writes about, yet gives independent, no-nonsense advice, often with a sprinkling of welcome wry humor in his pages.
The book is divided into 15 chapters and four appendices. The first three chapters act as an introduction, exposing the internals of SQL Server, including how to install it and how to create tables and set up relations among them so that data can capture the correct corporate environment. The following chapters deal with querying existing databases through Visual Studio and other tools; in particular, strategies for client/server, ASP, and Web-enabled environments, which represent the most widespread development environments, are presented with a strong emphasis on security. The appendices deal with installing the test databases provided on the companion DVD, monitoring SQL performance, and using server-side cursors. Additional references to books and Web sites can be found in footnotes throughout the book; a companion DVD contains sample code, a video lecture, and links to the author’s consultancy firm homepage.
This book will quickly find its way to server farms, corporate information technology (IT) departments, and freelance consultants. Those who will benefit the most from this book are software developers who can find here (almost) every conceivable way to connect to (almost) every conceivable data source. Database administrators will find this book useful too, as it deals with some database design and configuration issues, but its main focus is still on procedures to connect to existing data sources. The sheer size of the book may be intimidating at first, but it has the potential to become a trusted desktop companion to be consulted in many situations.
