Book Reviews

Recommended SQL Server Books, 2020 Edition

Last Updated February 17, 2020

If you’re the kind of person who likes to read books, here are some that I think would expand your horizons. These links are Amazon affiliate links, so I make a few cents when you buy through ’em. It’s your way of tipping me for the book recommendations, so thank you! T-SQL Books: Level 1:…

Book Review: Learn T-SQL Querying by Pedro Lopes and Pam Lahoud

Last Updated May 8, 2019

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Learn T-SQL Querying by Lopes and Lahoud You’ve been writing queries for at least a year or two, and you’re curious about what’s happening under the hood when SQL Server runs a query. You want to know what you can do to improve your queries, tune your indexes, and change SQL Server’s configuration settings so…

Book Review: Microsoft SQL Server Training, Volume 1

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Last week, I shared a few pictures out of Ron Soukup’s Inside SQL Server 6.5 book. You had a blast with that one, so I figured I’d share some more pictures from another, uh, let’s call it “well-preserved” book about SQL Server. Make sure you see the subtitle of this book before you add it to your…

Book Review: Inside SQL Server 6.5

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Books Offline 30 years ago, back in 1988, Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, and Sybase got together to start building SQL Server 1.0 for OS/2. I wanted to take a trip down memory lane to celebrate, but I didn’t wanna go back quite that far. I wanted to go back to what would probably be fairly recognizable – say,…

Book Review: Virtualizing SQL Server with VMware

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, Virtualization

tl;dr – I do not recommend this book. I was so incredibly excited when it was originally announced. A book published by VMware Press, written by prominent VMware, SQL, and storage consultants? GREAT! So much has changed in those topics over the last few years, and it’s high time we got official word on how…

SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers – Book Review

Last Updated December 9, 2018

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, Professional Development

I read a lot of technical books – stuff on SQL Server, VMware, storage – and they all start to blend together. Within the first few pages of reading SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers by Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar, though, it jumped out and grabbed me because it’s really different. This is gonna…

3 SQL Server Book Review Short Takes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately on the SQL Server front. I’d like to thank all three authors and publishers for providing these books for review. Securing SQL Server by Denny Cherry Paperback – Kindle Denny’s a jack of all trades, and a Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server to boot. I’ve had the pleasure…

Book Review: SQL Server Hardware by Glenn Berry

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

You probably only buy a couple of SQL Servers per year. You probably just tell your sysadmins, “I need a 2-socket server with 32GB of memory,” and then you just assume everything’s okay. Scratch that. Let’s be honest. It’s just us here, you and me, so I can be frank. You don’t trust those bozos. …

Book Review: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

I usually hate architecture books. I can’t stand ’em. Seems like every one I’ve ever read has been targeted at architecture astronauts – people who spend all their time talking theory, not practice. Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform This book is different. Reading this book is like having drinks in the pub with…

DBA Survivor by Tom LaRock – Book Review

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

How do you become a DBA? Usually the answer is, “By accident.” You’re a developer or a Windows admin, minding your own business, when the company acquires a SQL Server or somebody installs SQL on a server somewhere. Since you’re the closest thing to a DBA in the shop, your manager asks you to keep…

Book Week: The Economics of Writing a Book

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, SQL Server

This week I’m focusing on books and the book business. Today I’ll be covering the money thing for authors, and tomorrow I’ll be reviewing a book I like for both the content and the business. Enjoy! Now that I’m holding a physical copy of our book in my hand, the pain of the experience has…

Book Review: The Secrets of Consulting

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, Consulting

This book paid for itself in less than ten minutes. Secrets of Consulting I do consulting work on the side, and like many consultants, I’m never sure if I’m quoting the right billable rate. When I picked up this book several months ago, the first thing I did was turn to chapter 12, “Putting a…

Blog Better Week: How to Write a Product Review

Last Updated February 17, 2020

Brent Ozar

Blogging, Book Reviews

This week I’m focusing on how you can improve your blog. So far I’ve discussed how to build your momentum by scheduling posts ahead of time, the basics of search engine optimization, and how to spice things up with pictures. Tomorrow’s post will finish up the series with a book recommendation for bloggers of all…

Book Review: The Whuffie Factor

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

You, dear reader, probably don’t work in the marketing department. The vast majority of my readers are information technology professionals, and the rest are my family. (Hi, Mom!) Today, you can’t get a job like mine without knowing how whuffie works. In the not-too-distant future, you may not even be able to get a job…

Book Review: SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, Execution Plans

My gauge of an amazing book is simple: if I’ve got a question, and I reach for the book BEFORE I search the web, then it’s an amazing book. Several times in the last two weeks, I reached for this book first.

Book Review: SQL Server 2008 Administration in Action

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Let’s start with the obvious: yes, there’s a man on the cover smoking something. It’s probably not a coincidence that when I started writing this review, the iTunes Genius started playing Poison’s “Nothin’ But A Good Time.” There’s a reason they call it the Genius, and yes, I do have Poison in my MP3 collection,…

Book Review: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews

Production database administrators have to know at least a little about a lot of things: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration How to install or upgrade SQL Servers How to build clusters How to plan for disaster recovery and high availability How to do performance tuning How to secure and protect databases The production…

Recommended Books for SQL Server DBAs and Developers

Last Updated February 14, 2017

Brent Ozar

Book Reviews, SQL Server

Here’s my favorite SQL Server books for 2016-2014: T-SQL Fundamentals – (updated for SQL 2016) – don’t be fooled by this “fundamentals” title, because everybody who writes T-SQL queries needs this book. It’s the manual we should have been given when we started, and everyone’s going to learn something about concurrency, performance, and updates here. T-SQL Querying…