It clearly defies the title but does provide with very useful information. I am quite impressed. I have read this book as a pro. And is recommended only for pros.
Beginners please read something else first before you jump on this one.

This handy pocket consultant is a must have for administrators and developers. It delivers exactly what is promised: a handy guide for daily administration. Out of all my sql server books this is the one I refer to the most.

SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Pocket Consultant is an excellent reference for DBAs and System Administrators planning to implement and maintain SQL Server 2005. While the book is written for Administrators, database developers will benefit from it as well. This one does a great job of laying it out in plain English. The focus is on daily administration tasks, and there's a heaping helping of SQL commands as well. Highly recommended.

Sometimes when I read reviews people have written I wonder if they've actually read the book or simply thumbed through it in a bookstore or did a search of the pages. This is an excellent book and I've found it to be extremely helpful in setting up and configuring SQL Server 2005. This book isn't meant to be an allinone monster book, its a concise, focused book covering the core of SQL Server 2005, particularly for administrators but also extremely helpful for developers who are setting up sql boxes too. If you are developing databases for SQL Server 2005 you'll need a focused development book too especially if you are doing datawarehousing or datamart work or reporting services.

I got more out of this book's 548 pages than books nearly twice as big. The book has T-SQL examples throughout and I've used them for administration. The book has excellent coverage of SQL security, nearly 100 pages of security information covered in Chapter 3 "Managing Security, Access, and Network Configuration" and in Chapter 8 "Managing SQL Server 2005 Security". Excellent coverage of log shipping and database mirroring. The book covers schemas for administration perspectives but not in a database development perspective.

I used this book to gain a solid understanding of SQL Server 2005 setup, configuration and management. I refer to it all the time.

This is a great book for your everyday needs and I use it all the time. Highly recommended.

This book is clearly targeted for the beginners and it is a good reference for them. Also, if you are an experienced SQL 2000 DBA/developer and want to get basic but neccessary information on SQL 2005 administration, this is an excellent book.

This covers most areas well except:

1)Security, user, and schema administration. This book's coverage is very scanty.
2)Replication: very basic coverage at best and it will not help you understand SQL 2005 replication very much.
3)Data Mirroring: this part is OK, except it doesn't cover it in details as it needs to.
4)Log shipping: Maybe half a page dedicated to it.
5)Clustering: no coverage whatsoever.
6)T-SQL: almost no coverage except for administrative matters ("alter database/table" etc).
7)Performance tuning: almost none.

This book is clearly targeted for the beginners and it is a good reference for them. Also, if you are an experienced SQL 2000 DBA/developer and want to get basic but neccessary information on SQL 2005 administration, this is an excellent book.

This covers most areas well except:

1)Security, user, and schema administration. This book's coverage is very scanty.
2)Replication: very basic coverage at best and it will not help you understand SQL 2005 replication very much.
3)Data Mirroring: this part is OK, except it doesn't cover it in details as it needs to.
4)Log shipping: Maybe half a page dedicated to it.
5)Clustering: no coverage whatsoever.
6)T-SQL: almost no coverage except for administrative matters ("alter database/table" etc).
7)Performance tuning: almost none.

After reading this book, I felt like I had to stand up or at least applaud. It was really a masterpiece: extremely concise yet pretty comprehensive, easy to understand, and expertly organized. The pocket consultant series by Microsoft claims to be "The practical, portable guide that delivers immediate answers" and it absolutely is. This book is to computer manuals what iPods are to digital music. Compact, powerful, and easy to use.

The book is designed for both new and experienced professionals. Someone who has never used SQL Server before and will get as much out of it as someone who's been using it for a long while. Unlike some books, he doesn't talk down to you and respects the fact that you can learn things if shown how to use them.

This book doesn't just cover SQL Server, but also covers SQL itself. In fact, I really don't consider this just a SQL Server manual. It's really a SQL Server/SQL Command Guide, covering pretty much every aspect of daily administration, configuration, and tuning of SQL Server through the GUI and commands.

The index and table of contents is well organized so you can focus on the sections you want to learn more about.

The ideal book for anyone who works with or wants to work with SQL Server whether admin or not.

After reading this book, I felt like I had to stand up or at least applaud. It was really a masterpiece: extremely concise yet pretty comprehensive, easy to understand, and expertly organized. The pocket consultant series by Microsoft claims to be "The practical, portable guide that delivers immediate answers" and it absolutely is. This book is to computer manuals what iPods are to digital music. Compact, powerful, and easy to use.

The book is designed for both new and experienced professionals. Someone who has never used SQL Server before and will get as much out of it as someone who's been using it for a long while. Unlike some books, he doesn't talk down to you and respects the fact that you can learn things if shown how to use them.

This book doesn't just cover SQL Server, but also covers SQL itself. In fact, I really don't consider this just a SQL Server manual. It's really a SQL Server/SQL Command Guide, covering pretty much every aspect of daily administration, configuration, and tuning of SQL Server through the GUI and commands.

The index and table of contents is well organized so you can focus on the sections you want to learn more about.

The ideal book for anyone who works with or wants to work with SQL Server whether admin or not.

This is the book that should have been in the box. is absolutely right! I bought this book before we upgraded from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005. This book has been an invaluable tool in helping me get up to speed on the feautres and changes of SQL 2005. It's written like all Stanek's others to deliver what I needed and focus on the core. It's very clearly written, easy to understand. I read the first few chapters straight through, but now that I have my bearings in the new server, it's a handy reference that I pull off the shelf frequently. I would highly recommend this book to anyone upgrading from previous versions and any current administrators. As a reference manual it can't be beat.

This is the book that should have been in the box. is absolutely right! I bought this book before we upgraded from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005. This book has been an invaluable tool in helping me get up to speed on the feautres and changes of SQL 2005. It's written like all Stanek's others to deliver what I needed and focus on the core. It's very clearly written, easy to understand. I read the first few chapters straight through, but now that I have my bearings in the new server, it's a handy reference that I pull off the shelf frequently. I would highly recommend this book to anyone upgrading from previous versions and any current administrators. As a reference manual it can't be beat.

Pound for pound, this book packs in more details than any other I've found. No book on a subject can cover everything you need to know, but this one comes close for administrators. The best I've found out of them all. Stanek is clear and concise and just as the book promises, he zeroes in on what matters most. My copy has dogears and highlights everywhere. For the price you can't beat it.

I only recently got involved with SQL Server, when work required that I shift gears after our department downsized. Therefore I was not familiar with all of the nuances of SQL Server. In true William Stanek fashion, however, this book smoothly got this newbie very familiar with the features of SQL Server, which I am finding to be a lot more than I ever thought there would be, quite truthfully, I was not expecting it to be so complicated. The book starts out explaining the SQL Server administrations, and teaches some special characteristics for selecting hardware, choosing editions, and using the GUI and CLI tools. There is a lengthy explanation on SQL Server roles and integrating roles, planning for deploying, and setting up SQL Server. I really liked how the author drew the distinction between all the nuances of security, access and configuration. The massive chapter on tuning and optimizing goes into great depth. I never really appreciated the power of SQL Server until I read this chapters on data transformation, replications, transactions. I never knew before I read this book that SQL Server had features for log shipping and mirroring. Part Three and Part Four are where I've spent so much time reading lately. Since this book is 550 information packed pages, I can't review all of it for you. However, I find it an INDISPENSIBLE SQL Server tool. I always find the answers I need in Stanek's books!

What happened to encryption? That is a great new feature in SQL 2005..hard to believe its not mentioned in the guide.

Picked this up a few months back and have practically read it cover to cover already during our SQL upgrade/transition. In large part thanks to this book, I didn't run into any problems planning for or implementing our deployment. Chapters 2 on deploying SQL was a great help, as was the first chapter overview. Chapters 3 and 4 provide comprehensive details on configuration and tuning.

Excellent coverage of views and available stored procedures. Excellent coverage of database mirroring with full details on deploying, planning, and implementing. Also excellent coverage of log shipping and using log shipping with database mirroring.

With our servers up and running I spent a lot of time lately in chapter 8 to 10. Chapter 8 is on logins, users, roles, and permissions. Chapter 9 is on schemas, tables, view, and indexes. Chapter 10 is on importing, exporting, and transforming data. It's all covered clearly and concisely.

Next I'm working my way to profiling and monitoring for optimization and then to getting our backup plans final. This is all covered in chapters 13 to 15 and what I've read so far has been extremely helpful. This is a terrific resource.

but missing all the new features : database mirroring, encryption, end points etc.

Picked this up a few months back and have practically read it cover to cover already during our SQL upgrade/transition. In large part thanks to this book, I didn't run into any problems planning for or implementing our deployment. Chapters 2 on deploying SQL was a great help, as was the first chapter overview. Chapters 3 and 4 provide comprehensive details on configuration and tuning. Excellent coverage of views and available stored procedures. As far as the book not covering mirroring, endpoints, whatever that's ONE feature DATABASE MIRRORING. Database mirroring catalog views and database mirroring endpoint catalog views are listed on page 63. Planning for database mirroring is covered on pages 437-438. Mirroring databases is covered on pages 475 to 478. Log shipping and using log shipping with mirroring are covered on pages 525 to 534.

With our servers up and running I spent a lot of time lately in chapter 8 to 10. Chapter 8 is on logins, users, roles, and permissions. Chapter 9 is on schemas, tables, view, and indexes. Chapter 10 is on importing, exporting, and transforming data. It's all covered clearly and concisely. Next I'm working my way to profiling and monitoring for optimization and then to getting our backup plans final. This is all covered in chapters 13 to 15 and what I've read so far has been extremely helpful. This is a terrific resource.

When I have a question about SQL Server this is the first book I turn to. It packs more into its 549 pages than books nearly twice its size, and it does this by focusing on what matters and by being clear and concise.

As others have said, this book is very readable and full of helpful real world advice from an experience pro. The details, the many notes and tips, will help you avoid common problems and save you time.

This book covers all aspects of administering SQL Server 2005 and provides a terrific reference to anyone who maintains SQL 2005 servers.

A pet peeve i have w/ Microsoft books is they just mirror the help files. This admin pocket guide is not much more than regurgitated help files. I was hoping for some useful examples, closer to real life problems & solutions. Not there. Plz use the help files in Books Online to look up topics THEN examine the same topic in this book at a local bookstore BEFORE buying it. (Based on good reviews, i bought this & the Administrator's Guide to SQL Server 2005 by Buck Woody)

I picked up Stanek's SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Pocket Consultant and Windows Server 2003 Inside Out at the same time, and have found them both to be excellent. If there's one SQL Server book every developer, programmer and administrator should have, it's this one--I haven't found a better one and I've read half a dozen so far. Stanek has a gift for getting to the point, explaining the most complex concepts in ways that are easy to understand. He seems to pack a 1,000 pages of info into 550 pages. SQL Server 2005 Administrator's Pocket Consultant has a strong focus on security, configuration, optimization, and troubleshooting. Throughout the book, there's excellent coverage of T-SQL and I prefer the way T-SQL is covered in context in this book to the way it's covered in the separate T-SQL book I bought (and no longer use). Beyond core database administration, which this book covers better than any other book, it also covers full-text search, indexes, integration services (creating packages), linked servers, distributed transactions, replication, publications, etc. The maintenance chapters are some of the strongest with complete coverage of profiling, monitoring, optimizing, backup, recovery, log shipping, database mirroring, automation, etc. Thank you Mr. Stanek for an excellent book.

Ever since I picked up Stanek's Windows 2000 admin pocket consultant, I've relied on his books and they've never let me down. When I needed to learn about SQL Server 2005, I checked to see if there was a pocket consultant and I'm thankful there was. This book has been a constant resource in getting up and running with sql server. As usuall Stanek packs in more detail than other books twice as big, making this a powerful and to the point resource. All 549 pages are top notch!

I'd feel more comfortable about buying this book if the sample pages actually referred to SQL Server 2005 instead of SQL Server 2000. Some of the reviews are dated 2004. So which product does this book cover?

With a new set of tools, Administering SQL 2005 is quite different to previous versions this book provides a very useful overview of the new graphical administration programs, as well as detailing many of the commonly used administration stored procedures.

The book is very readable and I especially like the side notes, which come in Note, Tip, Caution, Real World and Best Practice forms. These give very useful practical information, which will help you avoid some the common problems that get posted to online newsgroups.

The book covers all aspects of administering SQL Server 2005 and will provide a handy reference to anyone whose function it is to maintain a SQL 2005 system.


Martin Bell (SQL Server MVP)
1/28/2006

Our MSDBA had this book on his desk the whole time he was setting up and tuning our new SQL test boxes. I decided to get a copy too, and it has been an excellent resource.

This good and concise sqlserver administration reference manual has a complete online version on microsoft.com/technet.

I haven't found a better book for sql admins. This book is extremely informative. I worked for a year with SQL 7 and have been studying and working with SQL Server 2000 for a year and a half. I passed Exam 70-228 in large part due to what I learned from this book. If you are looking for a how-to book that shows just exactly how to accomplish tasks associated with creating and maintaining SQL 2000 this book is for you. This is an excellent book if you want to understand how SQL Server 2000 works as well.

A lot of SQL Server books give you the same information included already in Books Online. SQL Server 2000 Administrator's Pocket Consultant is an excellent complement for Books Online, TechNet and MSDN. It covers similar topics, but it digs in where necessary, provides best practices, tips to the internal operations, explaining how SQL Server actually works, with unique information only available in this book.

I always want to know how things work because it helps me to understand the behaviour of a system. In many cases if you don't know how things work it could drive you to some misunderstandings. Here is where SQL Server Pocket Consultant helps out and Stanek has excellent teaching skills.

The book is very compact and full of information. It's all in the details. Chapter 2 "Configuring and Tuning" is a real gem. It helped so much with server and database tuning. Chapter 5 "SQL Server Security" is excellent on the security details. Chapter 7 provides deep detail of DTS and BCP. The final part of the book is the best, in my opinion. It covers performance, maintenance and optimization.

The book's small size makes it easy to take with you where ever you go and its good enough that you'll want to. Overall excellent guide ot sql server.

Overall this is a concise good overview of a complex product. It covers all the basics and in general the author did a good job of writing in plain language. Instead of typical Microsoft mumbo jumbo. I do find fault with the chapter on Security. The author refers to the built in "Guest" user account as a login. Which confuses the issue. I think he was confused about MSSQL's security schema as I am. (The security schema can be thought of in 3 layers: logins, users/serverroles/dbroles, and the actual object& statement permissions.) One last note, last time I checked Microsoft's Technet has a free online copy of this book. The book is still worth the full price I paid for it.

I knew nothing about SQL Server 2000 before picking this up. It took me from knowing nothing to knowing a lot. The author has an easy writing style which made it easier for me to learn this subject. I looked at a lot of SQL Server 2000 books and at least from my perspective, this is the one to own. Great information makes it well worth the money.

If you're anything like me, you may be considering this book as a study guide for 70-228. I recently took this exam and passed. This book is without doubt a text you can buy to prepare for the exam. Sure it doesn't cover everything in the exam, but it comes close.

Great chapters on replication and DTS. Very few screen shots. Packs in a lot of material in 450 pages. Absolutely useful for admining.

Here's my exam study sheet... Hope it helps you like it helped me.

Exam objectives not covered:

Installation
Upgrades
IIS virtual directories for XML

Exam objectives covered:

Create a linked server.
Configure SQL Mail and SQLAgentMail.
Configure network libraries.

Configure database options for performance. Considerations include capacity, network connectivity, physical drive configurations, and storage locations.
Attach and detach databases.
Create and alter databases.
Add filegroups.
Configure filegroup usage.
Expand and shrink a database.
Set database options by using the ALTER DATABASE or CREATE DATABASE statements.
Size and place the transaction log.

Managing, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting SQL Server 2000 Databases
Optimize database performance. Considerations include indexing, locking, and recompiling.
Optimize data storage.
Optimize files and filegroups.
Manage database fragmentation.

Modify the database schema.
Perform disaster recovery operations.
Perform backups.
Recover the system state and restore data.
Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot log shipping.

Perform integrity checks.

Troubleshoot transactions and locking
Extracting and Transforming Data with SQL Server 2000
Import and export data.
Develop and manage DTS packages.
Manage linked servers.
Manage OLE DB Providers.
Configure security mapping.

Convert data types.
Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot replication services.
Managing and Monitoring SQL Server 2000 Security
Configure mixed security modes or Windows Authentication.
Create and manage log ons.
Create and manage database users.
Create and manage security roles.
Add and remove users from roles.
Create roles to manage database security.

Enforce and manage security
Set permissions in a database.
Manage security auditing.
Managing, Monitoring, and Troubleshooting SQL Server 2000
Create, manage, and troubleshoot SQL Server Agent jobs.
Configure alerts and operators by using SQL Server Agent.
Optimize hardware resource usage.
Monitor hardware resource usage by using System Monitor.
Resolve system bottlenecks by using System Monitor.

Optimize and troubleshoot SQL Server system activity.
Monitor SQL Server system activity by using traces.
Monitor SQL Server system activity by using System Monitor.

This book makes a good administrative tool, particularly for people for whom SQL admin is one of many responsibilities and who therefore can't spend the time for in-depth training. One main flaw in this book is that it pretty much ignores the design aspect of setting up a new database and/or server. For example, the book lacks any information on best practices for the physical layout (files, drives, RAID, etc) or security. It assumes someone (a consultant?) knew what they were doing and set up the server and databases. Personally, I see this as part of the administrator's role. Another major shortfall of this book is that it excludes clustering completely, and as databases are more and more critical to companies, clustering is gaining in popularity.

This book is designed as a reference book and it does a decent job as that. The layout, contents, and index make finding what you need very easy. If, however, you want a book to read cover-to-cover in order to learn SQL administration, this is not it.

This book does not cover any advanced topics. For example, it will not teach you how to program DTS or how to spot performance problems due to bad indexing. It does, however, provide a very rock solid instruction on how to perform 95% of SQL administrative tasks. Cynically speaking, this book will teach you how to become a very successful button pushing SQL monkey. If you want to become something better, than I strongly suggest you buy and master "SQL 2000 Unleashed" and "Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Performance Optimization and Tuning".

This is the top book for SQL 2000 administration. Mr. Stanek has put together a great book for day-to-day administration of SQL Server 2000. I can't recommend this book strongly enough. It goes beyond the basics and goes a long way answering those questions that you ask yourself everyday and instead of hunting on the Internet every time you need a solution, you should carry this book with you. It shows you the types of tips and real world info that you only get from years of experience. This is like having an expert by your side. The best part about this book is the style in which it is written. Its not too technical and very easy to read. I read this book cover to cover and I have also been using it to help me prep for the exams. This book belongs on every DBA's bookshelf.

A must have for administrators and developers. I own several books on SQL Server but none have been as good as this one at saving me time and effort. The book is clearly written, not overly technical, and extremely informative. I really like the tips, notes and real world sections. Use this book to help you with day to day issues, almost like having an experienced consultant at your desk!