Written by a team of expert SQL users, this comprehensive resource approaches performance tuning from a new perspective by showing you a methodical scientific approach to diagnose performance problems. The book first walks you through how to discover bottlenecks when something is wrong and you'll then learn how to identify and remove the problems that are causing poor performance. You'll discover preventive measures you can take to try to avoid a performance problem entirely and you'll learn how to achieve better performance.

Steven Wort has been working with SQL Server for the past 14 years. He is currently a developer in the Windows group at Microsoft where he works on performance and scalability issues on a large database system. Steven has been at Microsoft for nearly 7 years, working in the Windows group for the past 2 years. Prior to this, Steven spent 2 years in the SQL Server group working on performance and scalability. His first job at Microsoft was 3 years spent working in what is now CSS as an escalation engineer on the SIE team. During this time Steven was able to travel the world working with some of Microsoft’s customers on their performance and scalability problems. Before coming to Microsoft, Steven spent 20 years working in the United Kingdom as a freelance consultant specializing in database application development. When Steven isn’t busy working, he can be found spending time with his family and enjoying many fitness activities in the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest.

Christian Bolton has been working with SQL Server since 1999 and in 2007 became a director and database architect for Coeo Ltd, a Microsoft Certified Partner focused on large-scale and complex SQL Server projects in the United Kingdom. Prior to this, Christian worked for 5 years as a senior premier field engineer for Microsoft UK, working with some of Microsoft’s biggest customers across EMEA. His specialist areas are high availability, scalability, and performance tuning. Christian works out of London and lives in the south of England with his wife and daughter. He can be contacted at http://coeo.com or through his blog at http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/christian.

Justin Langford has worked as a premier field engineer for Microsoft specializing in SQL Server for the past 3 years.Much of this time has been focused on sharing best practices for operations and optimization with some of the United Kingdom’s largest financial and government organizations. Justin previously worked as a consultant foraMicrosoft Partner focusing on upgrade, migration, and software deployment projects for enterprise customers. Outside of work, Justin enjoys yacht racing, snowboarding, and has a keen interest in classic British sports cars.

Michael Cape is a database developer with experience in a variety of industries. Those industries are mortgage banking, pension administration, advertising, logistics, insurance, and labor management. Michael holds a BSCS degree and got his start with database development with SQLBase from Gupta. Michael also has 5 years experience with DB2, and has been working with SQL Server, starting with version 7, for the last 7 years. Outside work, Michael spends time with his wife and two children. He also enjoys golf, bicycling, fishing, and kite flying.

Joshua Jin works for the Intel Corporation. He is a certified SQL Server MCITP database administrator, MCITP database developer, and MCITP business intelligence developer. He specializes in the performance tuning of large-scale and high-volume SQL databases. Prior to working at Intel, he worked on the largest Internet banking implementation in the United States, using SQL server as its database engine. He can be reached at joshua_jin?@yahoo.com.

Douglas Hinson is an independent software and database consultant in the logistics and financial industries, with an extensive SQL Server background. He has co-authored several Wrox books, including Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services.

Haidong "Alex" Ji is a professional trainer and consultant specializing in SQL Server administration, performance tuning, high availability, and many other facets of SQL Server. In addition, he also excels at database interoperability issues, having worked extensively with Oracle and MySQL on Unix and Linux. Haidong enjoys learning and sharing his expertise through technical writing, speaking, consulting, training, and mentoring. He co-authored Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (Wrox Press) and Professional SQL Server 2005 Administration (Wrox Press). Haidong maintains a blog at www.haidongji.com/category/technology/.He can be contacted at Haidong.Ji@gmail.com.

Paul Mestemaker is a program manager at Microsoft on the SQL Server product team. During the SQL Server 2005 product cycle, he worked closely with the new dynamic management views on the SQL Server Engine team. Following the launch, Paul moved to the SQL Server Manageability team to create tools on top of the new SQL platform technologies. He was influential in the release of SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer, Performance Dashboard Reports, and SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2. He is now a member of the SQLCAT Best Practices team, where he works with subject matter experts across Microsoft and in the community to develop new rules for SQL BPA. Paul has been a speaker at TechEd, PASS, Connections, and other Microsoft conferences. He blogs occasionally; you can check it out here: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlrem/.

Arindam Sen has worked with SQL Server for the past 8 years and has significant experience with Siebel deployments using SQL Server databases. His interests lie in the area of high availability and performance tuning. He is an MCSE, MCSA, MCAD, and MCDBA. He won the SQL Server innovator award (SQL Server Magazine) in 2003 and 2004. He holds an engineering degree in electronics and an MBA from Duke University.