My Book
If your database administration job involves doing backups, restores, installing Microsoft SQL Server, clustering, and security, these are the books for you.
Best Book for SQL Server Performance Tuning:
Professional SQL Server Internals and Troubleshooting
This is not your typical internals book. This book covers things you’ll actually use on a daily basis like CPU, memory, storage, and locking. It also teaches you how to use powerful troubleshooting tools like waits, SQL Nexus, Performance Dashboard Reports, and Profiler.
You can buy Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting from Amazon.
Sssssmokin!
Best Book for Beginning SQL Server DBAs:
SQL Server 2008 Administration in Action
This book by Rod Colledge is the best book whether you’re managing SQL Server 2005 or 2008. The concepts involved are the same, and almost everything he says applies to both versions.
The perfect buyer is someone who’s been working with SQL Server for a year or two, and who’s facing a lot of challenges on the job around configurations they haven’t seen before. They might be tasked with building their first disaster recovery plan, not sure whether to choose log shipping or database mirroring, and they want to know what types of production issues they’ll face with each of those options. They can read this book’s High Availability section and feel like they’re having a conversation with a friend who’s been there and done that.
We’d also recommend this book to someone preparing to get their MCITP certifications in SQL Server. If you devour the material in this book, then you’re going to have the kind of skills and knowledge that it takes to get certified. If you find this book too intimidating or too technically detailed, then you’re probably not going to like the certification process either – and the cost of this book beats the cost of most full-blown MCITP training materials.
You can read Brent’s full review, or buy SQL Server 2008 Administration in Action from Amazon.
Best Book for Senior SQL Server DBAs:
SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration
We highly recommend this book for production SQL Server database administrators and “accidental” DBAs, Windows admins who’ve been tasked with managing SQL Server. This book gives you the information you need without burdening you with unneccessary details, and it’s laced with practical tips and real-world good ideas.
It also includes chapters on SSIS, PowerShell, and Hyper-V, areas not traditionally covered by SQL Server DBA books.
You can read Brent’s full review of SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration, or buy it now on Amazon.
