Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals

by Kalen Delaney

Delve inside the core SQL Server engine—and put that knowledge to work—with guidance from a team of well-known internals experts. Whether database developer, architect, or administrator, you’ll gain the deep knowledge you need to exploit key architectural changes—and capture the product’s full potential. Discover how SQL Server works behind the scenes, including:

What happens internally when SQL Server builds, expands, shrinks, and moves databases How to use event tracking—from triggers to the Extended Events Engine Why the right indexes can drastically reduce your query execution time How to transcend normal row-size limits with new storage capabilities How the Query Optimizer operates Multiple techniques for troubleshooting problematic query plans When to force SQL Server to reuse a cached query plan—or create a new one What SQL Server checks internally when running DBCC How to choose among five isolation levels and two concurrency models when working with multiple concurrent users

Genres: Technical, Reference, Technology, Programming

1558 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 18, 2009

Reviews

[James Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the course of my work day, I spend the bulk of my programming time working with SQL Server: writing queries to retrieve data from our expansive scheme, creating or updating records, or designing new table structures to support exciting features. Recently, I've added "making slow SQL go faster" to the list of things I expect to be able to do well.

Towards that end, I'm attempting to immerse myself in the technicalities of how SQL Server does what it does and how my choices as a developer can affect that. In addition to taking classes and reading books specifically about query tuning and optimization, I thought an internals book would provide some much-needed context about what really happens behind the scenes.

It's still too soon to tell if that will pan out but if it doesn't, it would be no fault of this book. This book is an excellent deep dive into how SQL Server manages all of that precious data we shove into it every day.

While being highly technical and detailed, it's also approachable. The style is easy to read and it's filled with diagrams and pictures that help a brain figure out what's going on. I can now have intelligent conversations about how inserts into clustered indexes are managed (down to the page level) and how the query optimizer will choose between competing plans to handle a lot of joins. I know what's going on when I type "select *" in ways that I never did before [Ed: I'd never type "select *"...].

That said, the most beneficial part of this book is how it describes the functions available in SQL Server for me to see how my own data is organized. It explains the various methods available for me to see how pages are allocated across indexes, what's currently in my plan cache, what physical operations the database has been performing lately, and more. I've been keeping a file of useful queries to run and I expect I'll be using this file for the next several years.

If this book has any faults, it's largely that it skips some of the newer features that we use a lot. As an example, I could really use more information about XML parsing in general (and XML indexes in particular) and how the database feeds data to the CLR when running CLR code. Still, these are small complaints since the majority of my workload uses the bread and butter stuff that this book describes.

I think (and hope?) that reading this book will play a part in moving me from being an adequate or advanced SQL Server developer to an expert one.

[Eric Wisdahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a good six weeks to finish as it had so much information to consume that I would often find myself reading for ten or twenty pages and then having to take a break. However, I feel like reading it cover to cover once, in combination with some of the MCM Prep videos, has given me a very strong foundation of how the engine works. I'm sure that I will continue to look back at some of the chapters over the next several years as I come upon problems with T-SQL.

This book is highly recommended, although not for the faint of heart, and definitely not an entry level text.

[Corrado Piola · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best SQL Server book I ever read. You will not learn how to administer a SQL Server installation. This is outside the scope of this book.
Really perfect the fifth chapter, where you can find the details of the physical storage for every bit in the Data pages, for every datatype, and so on.
One of my favourite chapters is the tenth chapter, about transactions, isolation levels, locking and latching! Amazing...

[Steve Malley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kalen [et. al.] have produced a truly great SQL Server internals book, again! It covers many areas of how the DBMS actually works and will help any DBA get from the uknowns to pinning down the details.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect companion piece to Itzik Ben-Fan's T-SQL Querying, Kalen Delaney [et al] manages to expose a lot of what makes SQL Server tick; from the basic architecture to tables & indexes thru to an extensive examination of the DBCC command. Highly recommended.

[Vera VB · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this to be a difficult book. I guess that's because it's about the internals.

[Syarifuddin]

Nice Book