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SQL Server the Complete Reference

by Gayle Coffman

Overview
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Related Subjects
Read an Excerpt

Overview

Now with row-level locking, auto-grow databases, terabyte capability, and the most powerful I/O and administration toolset ever, SQL Server 7 is the database for the next century! The SQL Server skill set is in high demand - and whether you're an experienced DBA or just starting out, this complete reference teaches you everything you need to know to install and use SQL Server 7. Author Gayle Coffman - a Senior Database Administrator with over 17 years of experience - guides you through the entire SQL Server 7 database from its basic architecture through its feature-rich tools, and beyond. As you follow clearly written steps and real-world examples, you'll gain the skills needed to revolutionize data management within your organization.

Editorial Reviews

Bill Carmada

Microsoft calls SQL Server 7 a "defining release," and that's not just blowing smoke. They've almost totally rewritten the product. They've added tons of new features. They've simplified and streamlined the database engine and other key components-and the early buzz is they've succeeded at souping up performance pretty substantially. SQL Server 7 supports terabyte-size databases, offers nifty new data warehousing tools and more efficient Internet connectivity.

Plus, there are plenty of new Microsoft-style wizards designed to simplify administration-and they do. But, as always, the Wizards only take you so far, and you wouldn't want to be left stranded where they drop you off. Which brings me to the point of this review. SQL Server 7: The Complete Reference. When it comes to SQL Server 7, this book won't strand you anywhere.

The book is authored by Gayle Coffman, an SQL Server DBA at Microsoft who's responsible for 300 NT servers and 4,000 databases in Microsoft's Database Operations Group. She knows her stuff. And whether you're migrating to SQL Server 7 from someone else's database software or you're one of the two-million-plus current SQL Server users looking to upgrade, she'll make sure you do, too.

Coffman begins with a comprehensive overview and welcome to SQL Server 7-what it is, how it came to be, and where it's headed. You'll review Microsoft's architectural improvements, including the Microsoft Management Console's "snap-in" architecture which enables third-party developers to enhance or customize SQL Server's management tools; new replication capabilities for data warehousing.

Coffman introduces Microsoft's goodie-bag full of TCO stuff aimed at "reducing, simplifying, and eventually eliminating" many classic DBA responsibilities. Needless to say, this halcyon "no-DBA" era hasn't yet arrived (ain't no such thing as Zero Administration anything!) You DBAs will be busy for a while yet, and Coffman explains exactly what you'll be busy doing.

To start with, Coffman offers expert guidance on installing SQL Server, SQL Mail, and SQL Connectivity tools-and lots of guidance on upgrading from earlier versions of SQL Server. Coffman reviews Microsoft's new automated tools for converting from Oracle or Sybase, walking you through the conversion process and showing what the tools can and cannot do.

There's great up-to-the-minute coverage of database maintenance, backup, remote servers, performance monitoring, tuning and optimization. You'll also find essential information on how SQL Server 7 integrates with Windows NT to provide welcome security improvements.

SQL Server 7 offers a plethora of features intended to promote scalability "from the laptop to the enterprise using the same code base," in the words of Microsoft's marketing department. Along these lines, Coffman covers SQL Server 7's support for terabyte databases, multiprocessing, row-level locking (about time, guys) and its new disk formats for rows, extents, data files and log files.

You'll find detailed coverage of SQL Server 7's new paradigm for data storage. Gone is the device paradigm that permitted multiple databases per physical file; now a single database can reside in multiple files. Coffman shows how to make the most of all these changes to maximize both performance and capacity.

SQL Server 7: The Complete Reference contains a valuable introduction to database programming with Transact-SQL (plus a 300-page SQL command reference at the back of the book.) And since you've got to design your database before you can program it, there are chapters on database design, database integrity, indexing, working with very large databases and more. Did I mention there's detailed coverage of Web applications, too?

Whatever your goals or experience, if you're deploying or managing SQL Server 7, you'll be a whole lot more effective with Gayle Coffman on your side. Bill Carmada @ Cyberian Express

ISBN-13:: 9780078824944
Publisher:: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
Publication date:: 11/28/1998
Series:: SQL Server Professional Library
Pages:: 883
Product dimensions:: 7.33(w) x 9.06(h) x 2.25(d)

Related Subjects

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 3: Microsoft Management Console

The Enterprise Manager is still very similar to previous versions with the exception of the new framework around the Enterprise Manager called the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), a new way of presenting the administration of BackOffice servers. The intention is to be able to "snap in" other tools to administer BackOffice servers in this same framework that will allow for a customizable and centrally located command center. The presentation is very similar to Microsoft Windows NT Explorer and appears as a list tree.

Adding Microsoft Management Console Snap-Ins

When you open the Microsoft Management Console, you will see an item called the Console Root. The window is divided into two parts, with the Scope Pane on the left and the Results Pane on the right. If this is your first look at the MMC, it may seem strange to you, but after drilling down through the Explorer-like items by expanding them, things will begin to look more familiar. You will see four downward-pointing pyramids in the command bar-Action, View, Tools, and Help-which represent menus. The Action menu contains the items you will see when you right-click an object and will bring up a short-cut menu for the object. The choices will vary depending on which object you select in the Scope or Results Pane. The SQL Server 7 MMC snap-in console is called SQL Server Enterprise Manager, shown in Figure 3-1.

Adding a New Server Group

To add a new server group within the hierarchy tree of the Enterprise Manager, go to the Command menu of the Enterprise Manager, click Action, and you will see an option for adding a New Server Group. Do not confuse the menu item NewSQL Server Group in the Action Menu with the groups and roles of NT that I mentioned earlier in this book. The New SQL Server Group item in the Action Menu is a way to group servers together. This SQL Server Group allows you to build your Windows NT Explorer-like tree in a hierarchy of SQL Servers within the Enterprise Manager so that you can begin to build and expand the tree and see the hierarchy. You can place servers of the same type together, which is convenient when you have hundreds of servers. You can place the servers in easily recognized groups of servers, locate them in the list hierarchy, and get to them quickly when an administration crisis arises and more than one server needs immediate attention. The dialog box shown below enables you to build a New Server Group. Notice there are two levels in this dialog box: the Top Level Group and the Sub-Group. Type in the name of the SQL Server Group. The figures show a server group called the Complete Reference Group of SQL Servers that was created in the Manage Server Groups window.

I have installed SQL Server 7 on my computer as the local SQL Server and named it Ultimate, which is also the name of the NT server. SQL Server will automatically use the NT machine name for the SQL Server name. To place Ultimate in the group of Complete Reference servers:

1. Click on the item called SQL Servers under the Console Root of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

2. Click on the server group created called Complete Reference Group.

3. From the Action Menu, select Register Server.

4. Click Next when the Register SQL Server Wizard screen shown in Figure 3-2 appears.

5. Select a server under the list of available servers.

6. Press the Add button.

7. Press the Next button. The Select Connection Option screen will appear, giving you the choice to connect to the server using NT Authentication or SQL Server Authentication. If you choose NT Authentication, you will connect using the NT account information you log into your computer with. You will not have to enter a password because the SQL Server trusts NT with a trusted connection. If you chose SQL Server Authentication you will have to type the login ID and password for the non-trusted connection.

8. Choose the connection option of your choice.

9. Press the Next button.

10. When the Select SQL Server Group screen appears, press the Add button to add the \\Ultimate server to the Complete Reference Group.

11. Press the Next button to move through the next screen.

12. Press the Finish button. You have now registered a server and placed it in a server group that you have created. You can continue until you have registered all SQL Servers. Once you have accomplished this, you have a rich and powerful GUI tool set available to you for administering your SQL Servers. Tasks that take many minutes at the command line or by using Transact-SQL commands take seconds with the Enterprise Manager, a snap-in on the Microsoft Management Console.

If you select a SQL Server and right-click, you can choose Edit SQL Server Registration from the pop-up menu. You can check three other server-wide options if you would like them to apply to your server:

Display SQL Server state in console
Show System Databases and System Objects
Automatically start SQL Server when connecting

If the Show System Databases and System Objects check box is not checked, the system databases, master, msdb, and model will not appear in the Enterprise Manager hierarchy tree.

Integrating SQL Server with External Tools

You can run any NT application from within the Microsoft Management Console and the Enterprise Manager. Expand your newly registered SQL Server by clicking on the plus sign beside the server name in the Enterprise Manager tree. Select SQL Servers in the Microsoft Management Console and you can access the Tools menu for the Enterprise Manager and select External Tools from there. . . .