Product Description

Dive deep into the internals of query tuning and optimization in SQL Server 2005 with this comprehensive reference. Understanding the internals of SQL Server helps database developers and administrators to better create, access, and effectively process information from enterprise data. Written by experts on SQL Server, this volume from the Inside Microsoft SQL Server series of books focuses on query tuning and optimization. You'll take an in-depth look at the best ways to make queries more efficient and effective, while maximizing existing resources. Includes extensive code samples and table examples to help database developers and administrators understand the intricacies and help promote mastery of query tuning and optimization.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29814 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Publisher
Key Book Benefits:

-Provides deep background information along with best practices that help developers build and optimize more-responsive databases

-Features numerous code samples and table examples

About the Author
Kalen Delaney is the Series Editor for the Inside SQL Server series of books from Microsoft Press. She has been working with SQL Server since 1987 and has been a Microsoft MVP since 1995. She is a founding mentor of Solid Quality Learning, where she helps develop courses and training materials. Kalen is a contributing editor and columnist for SQL Server Magazine and the author of several books on SQL Server, including Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

Customer Reviews

Books Online gone prolix
I was disappointed with this book, which I bought together with SQL Tuning by Dan Tow, hoping to get well-digested expert advice. SQL Tuning was all that I hoped for, and I highly recommend it.

This book, though, has that creepy quality so common to MSFT Press books, where very knowledgeable people, usually connected with the MSFT development teams, list feature after feature in long, passive-voice descriptions, failing to discriminate for the reader and advise as to what is useful and what is not. You have the sense that they spent lots of time at trade shows touting the latest horde of "features", and little time coding under the strain of deadlines and client expectations. To them, every SQL Server nuance is always useful and wonderful and should get fair mention :(

This is a simple example, but SQL Tuning tells me that table scans are normally fine when selecting above 20% of rows, and index seeks are good for row counts under a percent, the space between depending on circumstance (which gray space the book goes on to address). This book, meanwhile, provides no real guidance, and tells me that table scans can be good, and indexes are useful too, and that SQL Server handles both nicely, and that the optimizer selects one or the other, and that it uses iterators, and that they are important, and that you can see what the optimizer has selected, and that you can change that if you want, and that you can automate the change, and that you can document the change, and here are the 4 related undocumented stored procs, and that this is new for 2005, and that there are other related matters, and that SQL Server has all this. Thanks!

Seems they are always plugging the product and never can admit to having suffered with its complexity. The recommendations, if you get them, are always muted by a kool-aid soaked affinity for SQL Server, which does all things well and will never fail to offer just the feature you need to succeed.

The book runs very long and strikes me as a big core dump on 3,000 topics, none of which seem prioritized or emphasized in distinct categories. Sure, the book has distinct chapters into which related material is dumped, but this fails to serve as **guidance**, which is what you are buying the book for. Not written by people in the trenches. Not recommended unless you want to buy some additional MSFT documentation.

Kalen's Magnum opus
At first glance, Inside SQL Server Query Tuning and Optimization, appears to be a multiple-author ensemble book with only 1½ chapters written by Kalen, which might be disappointing. However, the reality is that this database dream team is hand-picked by Kalen, and following Kalen's plan the book meets the high standards Kalen is known for. The flow of the information is the right way to understand and then solve query performance issues.

Chapter 1 - A Performance Troubleshooting Methodology by Sunil Agarwal (Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft.) The opening chapter introduces the many factors that influence query performance. Although it fails to connect every dot, the chapter is a comprehensive overview of SQL Server performance and a sound intro for readers without a solid background in SQL Server.

Chapter 2 - Tracing and Profiling by Adam Machanic (SQL Server MVP. Leader of the New England SQL Server User Group in Boston, and all around smart guy.) Even if you use Profiler daily, you'll pick up some useful info in this thorough converge of SQL Server Engine Trace and the Profiler UI.

Chapter 3 - Query Execution by Craig Freedman (Microsoft SQL Server Query Execution Team.) This chapter has more beef than a 16 oz filet in Kansas City. Wow. If you enjoy reading Query execution plans, then you'll read this chapter 3 or 4 times. There's deep knowledge in here you won't find anywhere else. I've lost sleep wondering about some of the questions answered by this chapter, and I've lost more sleep reading it.

Chapter 4 - Troubleshooting Query Performance by Kalen Delaney and Craig Freedman. This is the practical part two of Craig's amazing chapter 3. Here Kalen and Craig show exactly how to diagnose and solve difficult query performance issues.

Chapter 5 - Plan Caching and Recompilation by Kalen Delaney. This is the topic Kalen presented at the 2007 PASS Summit pre-con and her depth shows in this chapter. Since query plan caching is so important to executing queries, this chapter makes perfect sense in this book.

Chapter 6 - Concurrency Problems by Ron Talmage (SQL Server MVP, and true gentleman. Ron leads the Pacific Northwest SQL Server Users Group which meets in Building 35, the SQL Server team building on the MIcrosoft Redmond campus.) In any high transaction production system, diagnosing and tuning locking and blocking is the difference between "it runs on my notebook" and "it runs with thousands of users." Ron goes beyond the basic explanation of locks and isolation levels to explain how to resolve specific conncurency issues.

Book prerequisite: at least 2-3 years of writing SQL Server queries and a decent understanding of SQL Server.

Like Kalen's other books, Inside SQL Server Query Tuning and Optimization, is readable, authoritative, and a requirement on every serious database developer's desk. Buy this book! and read it at least twice.

Kudos to Kalen & Company for the Definitive SQL 2005 PTO Manual
I received a copy of this latest-&-greatest book on SQL Server 2005 performance tuning & optimization--my passion & my career--& am frankly in awe. Being a long-time fan, admittedly I was favorably predisposed. Yet I am frankly amazed at the extent to which in my initial review my expectations have been exceeded. The work of Kalen et al is likely to serve as not merely a guidebook but a milestone, providing a step-by-step manual surpassing all previously published pretenders. If only I didn't work for a living & could spend the time straightaway to absorb what I need from it. As it is, Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: Query Tuning & Optimization is likely to be my constant companion for the next few months & like her other books will soon become highlighted & dog-eared from extensive use. It will take quite a while to transcribe the complete methodology & DMVs & incorporating them properly into my library, but what fun it will be!

My deliverables will undoubtedly have extensive references to Query Tuning & Optimization. Indeed, if I only this book were available just a few weeks ago it'd've been put to good use in my current engagement.

Kudos to Kalen & company for providing us this wonderful work, long-awaited yet worth it.