Inside SQL Server 2005 Tools [With CDROM]

Straight from Microsoft comes this authoritative guide to the many ways you can use the tools developed for SQL Server 2005. The book documents an impressive build out of functionality, to make the administrator more productive. No doubt, in part, the book is also a competitive response to IBM and Oracle's database offerings. For those of you interested in protecting your database against attacks, there is a useful section on surface area reduction. SQL Server comes with several services. Quite possibly, your usage might not need some of these. So you are shown how to turn them off. Lessens the risk. Plus, some services are accessible on the network. If you only need these accessible locally, then you can disable remote network access. Simple precautions that can improve matters. In fact, many of the features described in the book can be disabled, and often are, as a default measure. The most powerful tools appear to be those for data mining, in the Analysis Service 2005. You can add custom logic, in addition to various algorithms that come with the service. The narrative also shows examples of graphics of the analysis, where various methods can be easily plotted. For some readers, the data mining is where you can add or find the most value to your data. My impression is that you should not need to read the book sequentially. Just pick the sections that are germane. The chapters seem largely independent of each other.