SQL Server 2008 represents a sizable jump forward in scalability, performance, and usability for the DBA, developer, and business intelligence (BI) developer. It is no longer unheard of to have 20-terabyte databases running on a SQL Server. SQL Server administration used to just be the job of a database administrator (DBA), but as SQL Server proliferates throughout smaller companies, many developers have begun to act as administrators as well. Additionally, some of the new features in SQL Server are more developer-centric, and poor configuration of these features can result in poor performance. SQL Server now enables you to manage the policies on hundreds of SQL Servers in your environment as if you were managing a single instance. Wers"ve provided a comprehensive, tutorial-based book to get you over the learning curve of how to configure and administer SQL Server 2008.Whether yours"re an administrator or developer using SQL Server, you canrs"t avoid wearing a DBA hat at some point. Developers often have SQL Server on their own workstations and must provide guidance to the administrator about how theyrs"d like the production configured. Oftentimes, theyrs"re responsible for creating the database tables and indexes. Administrators or DBAs support the production servers and often inherit the database from the developer.This book is intended for developers, DBAs, and casual users who hope to administer or may already be administering a SQL Server 2008 system and its business intelligence features, such as Integration Services. This book is a professional book, meaning the authors assume that you know the basics about how to query a SQL Server and have some rudimentary concepts of SQL Server already. For example, this book does not show you how to create a database or walk you through the installation of SQL Server using the wizard. Instead, the author of the installation chapter may provide insight into how to use some of the more advanced concepts of the installation. Although this book does not cover how to query a SQL Server database, it does cover how to tune the queries yours"ve already written.The first ten chapters of the book are about administering the various areas of SQL Server, including the developer and business intelligence features. Chapter 1 briefly covers the architecture of SQL Server and the changing role of the DBA. Chapters 2 and 3 dive into best practices on installing and upgrading to SQL Server 2008. Managing your SQL Server database instance is talked about in Chapter 4. This chapter also describes some of the hidden tools you may not even know you have.Once you know how to manage your SQL Server, you can learn in Chapter 5 how to automate many of the redundant monitoring and maintenance tasks. This chapter also discusses best practices on configuring SQL Server Agent. Chapters 6 and 7 cover how to properly administer and automate many tasks inside of the Microsoft business intelligence products, such as Integration Services and Analysis Services. Developers will find that Chapter 8 is very useful, as it covers how to administer the development features, such as SQL CLR. Chapter 9 explains how to secure your SQL Server from many common threats and how to create logins and users. Chapter 10 covers how to create a SQL Server project and do proper change management in promoting your scripts through the various environments. It also covers the Policy-Based Management framework in SQL Server.Chapters 11 through 15 make up the performance tuning part of the book. Chapter 11 discusses how to choose the right hardware configuration for your SQL Server in order to achieve optimal performance. After the hardware and operating system is configured, Chapter 12 shows you how to optimize your SQL Server instance for the best performance. Chapter 13 describes how to monitor your SQL Server instance for problematic issues such as blocking and locking. Cha

Brian Knight, SQL Server MVP, MCDBA is a database manager at Fidelity National Financial and a co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com. He has worked with SQL Server for 10 years and has written several SQL Server books, including Wrox' Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services.

Ketan Patel is a Development Manager for the Business Intelligence Center of Excellence group at Microsoft. He has worked with SQL Server and other Microsoft technologies for more than 10 years, and has presented at TechEd.

Ross LoForte is a SQL technology architect at the Microsoft Technology Center Chicago who specializes in Microsoft SQL Server solutions. He has more than 16 years experience developing, managing, and architecting SQL solutions on large, mission-critical database platforms. Ross presents at TechEd, SQL PASS, Gartner, TDWI, and other conferences.