Brad's Sure Guide to Maintenance Plans shows you how to use the Maintenance Plan Wizard and Designer to configure and schedule eleven core database maintenance tasks, ranging from integrity checks, to database backups, to index reorganizations and rebuilds.  Read more...

This book holds the key to "encryption without fear". In it, John Magnabosco sweeps away some of the misconceptions surrounding SQL Server's encryption technologies, and demonstrates that, when properly planned and implemented, they are an essential tool in the DBA's fight to safeguard sensitive data.  Read more...

Inside the SQL Server Tacklebox you'll find day-to-day tools and techniques to automate and standardize SQL Server installation, document and report on your servers, migrate data and manage data growth, troubleshoot performance issues, receive notifications of impending issues, secure access to your servers and fight off the data corruption monster.  Read more...

Brad McGehee provides a "career guide" for DBAs. It is intended both to help prospective DBAs find a "way in" to the profession, and to advise existing DBAs on how they can excel at their jobs, and so become Exceptional DBAs.  Read more...

Whether practicing for an exam or interview, or just wanting to see who's got the biggest SQL Server brain in your office, this book is perfect. Containing 100 SQL Server Central Questions of the Day, this book is a great way to test yourself and increase your knowledge.  Read more...

We have a sample chapter available from The Data Access Handbook, written by experts at DataDirect Technologies.  Read more...

The software industry is, just occasionally, more absurd than one would dare to imagine. Having spent most of his working life in its clutches, Phil Factor has pretty much "seen it all" and what's more he's prepared to tell what he knows. The second edition of Phil's "Confessions of an IT Manager" contains Phil's full repertoire of tales of institutional mayhem and software projects gone awry.  Read more...

Best of SQLServerCentral vols 1-4 pulls together some of the best contributions to SQLServerCentral.com between 2002 & 2006.  Read more...

Despite my misgivings about the fall from favor of technology books, I was heartened to hear from the developers at Red Gate that the classic books on the art of programming are still important to them. What are the equivalent books for DBAs?  Read more...

When information is exchanged in XML format, there needs to be an agreement between the sender and receiver about the structure and content of the XML document. An XSD (XML Schema Definition Language) Schema can be used to enforce this contract and validate the XML data being exchanged. Jacob Sebastian's book explains all.  Read more...

Best of SQLServerCentral vol 5 pulls together some of the best contributions to SQLServerCentral.com in 2007.  Read more...

"Best of SQLServerCentral v6" pulls together some of the best, most popular, and the most read articles of 2008, in dead tree format, covering database administration, BI, design, security, T-SQL, and most things in between.  Read more...

Brad McGehee provides a "career guide" for DBAs. It is intended both to help prospective DBAs find a "way in" to the profession, and to advise existing DBAs on how they can excel at their jobs, and so become Exceptional DBAs.  Read more...

SQL Server 2008 has hundreds of new features and improvements for Production DBAs, Developer DBAs, and Business Intelligence specialists…in this book I focus on what I thought were the ten most important new features for Production DBAs.  Read more...

As a developer, DBA or manager, you may not really want to know all about XML, replication or Reporting Services, but if your next project uses one or more of these technologies heavily then the best place to start is with the 'jungle roof' view of each topic that this Crib Sheet compendium provides.  Read more...

Every day, out in the SQL Server forums, the same questions come up again and again: why is this query running slow? Why isn't my index getting used? In order to arrive at the answer you have to ask the same return question in each case: have you looked at the execution plan? Grant Fritchey provides the only dedicated and detailed book on this essential topic.   Read more...

SQL Server Profiler can troubleshoot a wide range of SQL Server issues, such as poorly-performing queries, locking and blocking, excessive table/index scanning, and a lot more. Brad's book will allow you to master the use of this versatile tool.  Read more...

Chapter 3 from Murach’s SQL Server 2008 for Developers shows you how to retrieve data from a database table. In the process, you’ll master the basic skills that you’ll use in coding almost any SELECT statement, no matter how complex. At that point, you’ll be ready to learn how to code joins, summary queries, subqueries, and action queries, and then move on to working with server-side features like cursors and stored procedures.  Read more...

Every day, out in the SQL Server forums, the same questions come up again and again: why is this query running slow? Why isn't my index getting used? In order to arrive at the answer you have to ask the same return question in each case: have you looked at the execution plan? Grant Fritchey provides the only dedicated and detailed book on this essential topic.   Read more...

We have a sample chapter available from The Data Access Handbook, written by experts at DataDirect Technologies.  Read more...

Brad McGehee provides a "career guide" for DBAs. It is intended both to help prospective DBAs find a "way in" to the profession, and to advise existing DBAs on how they can excel at their jobs, and so become Exceptional DBAs.  Read more...