This practical, hands-on book offers deep, thorough coverage of the internals of architecture and resource management in SQL Server 2005, focusing on the Storage Engine. The book features extensive code samples and table examples.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 17 Ratings

Fantastic - 2008-01-06
Reviewer Rating:
Okay, reviewing this book is going to be quite difficult. I have mixed feelings however everything that I have to say about this book is positive. For one, this is not for the faint of heart of casual reading. This book is there for those who want to learn the gory details of how SQL 2005 works.

I would describe the book like this:
You have a car and it is nice and pretty on the outside, and you can do all sorts of cool things with the buttons on the console and you can play music and other nifty things, such as GPS. Well, on the inside of the car you have no clue how it all ties together and what is going on when you push that button.

Well, imagine this book as a blueprint of how your car's innards work, down to the very last oil spot on the engine.

This book is the best down right down to the memory block detailed book I have seen on SQL 2005. Now, the hard part about this book is that it can be difficult to read, and follow, at times. There are several sections you may have to read over and over again just to start to understand what it even means.

If you are looking for a good hard core book on the SQL engine, this is it for you. I give this book a 5 star rating for content, author knowledge and sheer impressive information.

Inside Microsoft SQL SERVER 2005: The Storage Engine - 2009-05-03
Reviewer Rating:
This is a well written book that contains plenty of insight into how SQL Server works.

Not a fast read, but worth the investment - 2009-04-02
Reviewer Rating:
First note: this book is not a page turner. It is not dry, but packed. It will take a long time to get through, but the book is worth the effort if you are trying to get some in-depth knowledge on SQL Server.

Best SQL Server internals book on the market - 2008-08-07
Reviewer Rating:
This is NOT a book to learn about SQL Server programming. This is for the advanced student of database programming or optimization. Did you ever want to know how SQL Server writes the indexes to disk? How many bytes does that row actually take in memory? Those are the types of questions you can ask in this book and get incredibly detailed answers.

The section on index creation alone is fantastic. You will not find this level of detail in college books on database design and thoery.

I think this is honestly the book I have read from a company that gives so much of their internal information. The format of the disk files, how things happen and why are all included. The writing style is clear without being wordy. She has a lot to tell you and gets about her business. The examples are usually small and to the point.

Less signal more noise - 2008-08-05
Reviewer Rating:
I have attempted to read this book atleast 4 times in the last year. A couple of times I tried reading cover to cover. Other times I jumped into specific chapters. Neither approach worked for me.

I realized the reason is that the book's presentation is very confusing (atleast for me). There are a lot of contents in the book that can be found easily. For example chapter 6 starts with a primer on relational database which is not the goal of the book. Also I found the complete catalog of data types a bit redundant since it can be got from online. Again these only examples. The book is fraught with such redundant material that makes the signal to noise ratio very low.

I expected the book to contain the stuff that cannot be found else where (Sort of like Windows Internal by Mark Russonovich). May be the problem is my expectation. I loved "Database Tuning" by Dennis Shasha et al.

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