ISBN: 0321447743
History
Ever since I joined Microsoft, I had wanted to produce a book like this. Shortly after joining the company, I discovered that a lot of the critical knowledge necessary for troubleshooting SQL Server and solving hard SQL Server problems was not documented anywhere. Particularly surprising was the discovery that the basic knowledge required to support the product was not always well-documented and was basically passed around from person to person via oral traditions and tribal knowledge. This worked out nicely for the handful of chiefs, but not so well for the rest of the tribe.
I was originally going to document this sort of info in my architecture and internals book, but ultimately decided that it was different enough from internals coverage that it deserved its own book. I also decided to involve as many people as I could from within Microsoft to write the book and limit my role to that of the book's editor.
Trivia
The essay at the back of the book is actually a true story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty :-)
You can download an update to the book's CD here. You can get the latest version of SQL Nexus, one of the utilities on the book's CD, here.
