Inside SQL Server 2000 Book/CD Package (DV-MPS Inside) [Paperback]

Many SQL Server books give you the same information included already in Books Online. Perhaps with different words, or different order, but nothing completely new. Inside SQL Server 2000 is an excellent complement for Books Online, TechNet and MSDN. It covers similar topics, but it digs into the internal operations, explaining how SQL Server actually works, with unique information only available in this book.

I always want to know how things work internally, because it helps me to understand the behaviour of a system. In many cases, the published interface doesn't tell you exactly how the system work, and it could drive you to some misunderstandings. Here is where Inside SQL Server helps you. Kalen's unique access to the Dev team, she even has a desk in the same building as the dev team, gives her an unique position to write about the deepest features, and if you add her excellent teaching skills, you can get this unique result, where the hardest topics can be learned in an unusually easy way.

Chapter 3 "SQL Server Architecture" is a gem altogether. I couldn't do my work without it.

The "Internal Storage" section from Chapter 6 "Tables" is a classic, with renewed information for SQL Server 2000. As a SQL Server instructor, I don't see how I could teach without this information.

Chapter 8 "Indexes" has been modified a lot, to cover in a deeper detail the structure of SQL Server 2000 indexes. It helps you to understand why the Query Optimizer selects one specific query plan, and how SQL Server access data through indexes.

Chapter 9 "Modifying Data" is another special part of this book. If you want to know how page split works, how SQL deletes, updates and insert rows, and you want to see what actually happens inside the data page, this is your chapter, as it is "my" chapter.

However, the best part of this book, in my opinion, is the last part: "Performance and Tuning". You can argue that this is not a section for every database administrator or programmer, but if any SQL Server professional wants to convert a database system into an excellent system, this section is a must. Kalen has been involved in the creation of the excellent SQL Server Performance Tuning courses for versions 6.5 (MOC 665) and 7.0 (MOC 2013) and this section covers in great detail all the main topics a serious SQL Server professional should know.

If you are new to SQL Server, buy another book first, and learn as much as possible. Once you think you know everything about it, buy Inside SQL Server, and you will see how much you still have to learn.

Before Inside SQL Server 2000 came out, my favorite technical book on earth was Inside SQL Server 7. Up until today, there was no other book that I consulted with as much as I did with Inside 7. My copy is already in a very bad shape from overuse. I often consult with it whenever I am in doubt on any issue concerning SQL Server internals. I sometimes read from it to my students in class to prove a point. I had many expectations from inside SQL Server 2000 and I eagerly read every word in it. The book exceeded my expectations! Before it came out, I thought that it would have the same level of detail that Inside 7 had with additional discussions on SQL Server 2000s new features, but it goes far beyond that. In many areas it goes into smaller details than Inside 7 did discussing issues that I have never seen discussed in any other book or published document. For example, in the chapter about indexes DBCC PAGE is used extensively to actually traverse the B-Trees and examine the actual layout of the data in the index pages. By examining those, a lot of the points concerning the interesting index architecture that SQL Server uses become clearer. By getting to this level of detail, I feel that I have more adequate tools to make the right critical decisions in a system regarding which columns to index; on which column(s) to create the clustered index; space consumption of indexes on huge tables, and so on. The chapter also covers the new indexes on views and on computed columns. The chapter on locking discusses the locking architecture and the lock manager in detail but it also discusses internal lock structures such as Lock Blocks and Lock Owner Blocks in great depth. There is simply no way to get that information in any other source. Many internals related areas get more attention in Inside 2000 such as the storage engine and the relational engine. The query processor has a whole chapter of its own! The installation process is covered in great detail covering all the installation options, some of which are totally new, such as multi instances. It also covers hardware considerations such as RAID controllers, file system, memory and so on. The chapter on tables discusses internal page and row structures explaining every bit inside the row. T-SQL is not neglected either. Beyond programmatic aspects, Inside 2000 gets into the various internals and optimization aspects of the various constructs and handles query and performance tuning in depth. Among the topics that are covered are joins, subqueries, derived tables, user defined functions, stored procedures, transactions, referential integrity including the new cascading referential constraints, after and instead of triggers, views, cursors, large objects and more. Full-Text searching has a whole new section. Tough areas such as plan caching; auto parameterization and reuse of execution plans are also explained in detail. Join algorithms including nested loops, hash and merge are also explained. The coverage of data modification internals is outstanding! It includes coverage of page splits; the various internal update mechanisms such as in-place and non in-place updates; bulk inserts optimization and more. All these were just examples. The book is very rich in the areas that it covers and it is definitely a must for programmers and DBAs that really want to know their stuff as far as SQL Server is concerned. The book is a work of art.

If you like the previous two "Inside" Books, or even if you just have them on your bookshelf for reference, then get this one too. Don't expect it to hand-hold you through the product, give real-world examples of product usage, tell you how to code your queries etc. That's not what the book is about - there are plenty of other books that cover these and other subjects well.

This book covers the internals of SQL 2000, how it works, how the optimiser does it's job, how the database pages are laid out - all the stuff you won't find documented anywhere else. This is the only book the SQL Server development team have put their first hand knowledge into, so if you're really interested in how the product works and is architected then buy this book (or get a job on the SQL Server development team).