Data management is becoming more and more important--even vital--for all but the smallest businesses. Nowadays, as soon as a business starts growing, it is rapidly confronted with an ever-increasing mass of data that must be dealt with thoroughly, quickly, and in a timely manner. This has not always been the case. Up until a few years ago, things were far simpler, data needs were not so pressing, and people could afford to process their data in a much more leisurely manner. SQL Server itself reflects these changes. When Microsoft initially took over SQL Server from Sybase, it was essentially just another relational database management system (RDBMS), albeit at the enterprise level. Today, it has become a most articulated system, consisting of at least three main components: an extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool (SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS); an online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining server (SQL Server Analysis Services, SSAS); and a reporting server (SQL Server Reporting Services, SSRS). Accordingly, its user base has diversified over time and now needs guidance for each part of the system.

In 18 chapters and four appendices, this book covers Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which is the programming language used not only to write queries and user-defined functions, but also to interface SQL Server with other programming languages, and hence with other equally important enterprise data assets. The introduction puts T-SQL in perspective, reviewing its history and foundations, and then presenting its development environment and tools. Subsequent chapters explain all the features in depth, including procedural code and CASE expressions, user-defined functions, stored procedures, triggers, encryption, common table expressions and windowing functions, data types and advanced data types, and full-text search. The book also discusses interaction with different programming languages and data structures, including Extensible Markup Language (XML), XQuery and XPath, common language runtime (CLR) integration programming, .NET client programming, and data services.

The authors present these topics in a plain and easy-to-understand way--that is, plain and easy for a computer programmer--with numerous code examples. The entire code base for the book can be downloaded from the Apress site (http://www.apress.com/9781430245964); apart from its use as a teaching aid, it represents a useful collection of reusable code. Although each chapter contains exercises at the end, they serve more as a review of the chapter topic than as exercises for a real course.

The audience for this book is clearly specialists--people who not only already have a more than passing knowledge of SQL and database administration, but who also confront these issues every day. For such an audience, this book can certainly be useful as a broad tutorial. It might even lift their spirits should they find their tasks too overwhelming.