 |
Now that SQL Server 2005 is starting to make its way out into the workplace, I find myself being asked what's new and exciting in this version on a fairly frequent basis. The easiest way to get an exhaustive bullet list of new features is to install one of the trial versions of the product and look in the documentation, where Microsoft lays out all the changes in excruciating detail. But if you want something a bit easier to read, and that makes an attempt to highlight the truly important details, you might want to try Eric Brown's new book again. At just over 300 pages (and feeling slimmer; for a change, the publisher didn't bulk up the book with thick paper), this book provides a much friendlier "what's new" list than the official documentation. The book is split into six chapters, beginning with a broad overview. From there, Brown spends an entire chapter highlighting security advances, going on to look at database management, database development, and business intelligence before ending with a selection of new T-SQL constructs. Without going into enormous depth on anything, he does go over the major new features, emphasizing the ones that are likely to be of most use to mainstream customers and making an effort to show their use cases. Brown's style is first-rate and his explanations are clear. For example, the section on database mirroring puts this new technique in the context of other high-availability features and explores how to make the tradeoffs when choosing which technique to use. Despite the book's slimness, it does feel a bit padded in spots, notably because material from the first "overview" chapter is repeated (sometimes word-for-word) in the later in-depth chapters. But on the plus side, if you've been avoiding SQL Server 2005, this book will give you a good overview of the important new features, and give you the background you need to judge whether this is an upgrade you really need to make right now.
Mike Gunderloy is the lead developer for Larkware and author of numerous books and articles on programming topics. Published May 2, 2006 |
SQL Server 2005
Distilled, $34.99