September 30, 2005 at 6:20 pm
I'm in a slightly sticky situation. I recently got a job I interviewed for as a business analyst/programmer. I know quite a bit of VB 6.0 and SQL language, also enough access to build a decent database as a backend for my apps. I've recently received a 4 yr CIS degree, so I know a little about everything. I told them very clearly three times in the interview that I'd never built a SQL Server DB, but they must not have cared about that. They need someone who can program, do some DB work, and also do some business analysis. I was the best fit they could find.
After working with the group a few days, I figured out they need a data warehouse and marts to do some historical analysis, and eventually data mining and trend analysis, etc. I think they said they'd like to have that by the end of next year.
What I need now is one or two really great books to get started with, and a small synopsis on what I'm going to need as far as dev software and server specifics to get this thing off the ground. I asked a few of our IS staff on the server/DB side, and couldn't get a strait answer.
The first thing my new group would like to see is simply enough tables to dump data into from 4 or 5 different DBs, from which they can pull data for analysis whenever they need to do so. The total rows for this DB will be around 170mil, but with just a few measures in each row. Microsoft datasizer says I should expect about 5gig per year of data.
So I'm freaking out because I know ziltch about SQL Server, what tools and server set up I'm going to need, and the more I read, the less it sounds like "Oh it's not that big of a deal. It's easy", as a few friends told me.
Help!
September 30, 2005 at 7:02 pm
Just suggestions, your milage may vary:
Start with Chris Date's 'Introduction to Database Systems' for a good foundation. I'm partial to Fabian Pascal, though he's not everyone's cup of tea, who has 'Practical Issues in Database Management' and 'Understanding Relational Databases with Examples in SQL-92'.
The above are books on general realtional theory and practice and don't have examples to be used with any specific database management system vendor's particular flavor of SQL. For SQL Server specifics, Ken Henderson and Kalen Delaney are my favorites. Each has several good books on SQL Server and it's semi-mysterious internals.
Folks on this forum (and others) are really good about answering questions if you give them enough info to start with (problem statement, table definitions, sample data and example output), though they probably won't design the whole thing for you.
October 1, 2005 at 4:04 am
I agree with David on this i would start with Kalen Delaney's book Inside SQL Server but the best buys you can make are the three Ken Henderson books the Guru's guide to transact SQL, the gurus guide to stored procedures and the gurus guide to SQL Server architecture and internals. There's an offer on them from barnes and noble at the moment. (they even come as box set now)
Also good is Joe Celko's SQL for smarties.
And for general database design the book i got at uni and still like even although its ancient is the Handbook of Relational Database design by candice fleming.
Also useful are the Ken henderson blog and Slava oks blogs where you can find all sorts if interesting stuff.
http://blogs.msdn.com/khen1234/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/articles/441058.aspx
And as david said if you post questions on this site there is pretty much always someone who can point you in the right direction. Which is really useful when you get stuck.
As well as this site if you are using dts this iste is useful
And for performnace tuning this site is good
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/
As for data warehousing design books thats not something i'm too experienced at so I let someone who is recommend books for that.
hth
David
October 3, 2005 at 10:29 am
Thanks, guys. Remembering I have a little over a year to do this is helping me cope with being a total newb. =)
I'll check into those books you mentioned.
October 5, 2005 at 8:52 am
Murarch's book on T-sql and SQL Server is a great Newbie Book. It assumes you know Nothing at ALL, and has lots of examples. There's lots of stuff in there that even Experienced SQL Programmers don't know about..when you learn on the job ..you miss a lot of the fine details.
HTH
Mathew J Kulangara
sqladventures.blogspot.com
October 7, 2005 at 6:28 am
Help Help,
I too took a position with a company that READ my resume (Unix Admin)and was aware that my background is 'some' Oracle 7/8/9i as an Administrator only. They said SQL server 2K would be simple. Now I'm in there and I've found they need several databases setup (backends) and connections to front end, which I've never done.
I'm going through Prof SQL Server 2000 (by Robert Vieira) and I'm stuck on 'create database' already with a "Device Activation Error"...I logged in (setup mixed mode) with 'sa', no password. Following the examples it told me to use the model as a template. No where in the book does it direct me on what happens if the 'create' fails.
So I need lots of help.I'm a newbie without a good Windows(2003) foundation, coming from Unix..So I'm in a pickle.
I've read the suggestions and I"ll follow those, but if there are others specifically for my situation, please feel free to direct me. thanks so much to all.
Newbietoo
October 12, 2005 at 11:54 am
Ok, I'm ready to purchase some books. I wanted to make sure the job was a bit more stable, and also that the project wouldn't be sucked into the IT dept before I bought books, etc. It looks like the project won't be sucked into IT, of which I can't figure out why, but that still works to my advantage.
So I'm thinking I'll buy the Ken Henderson trilogy (probably more books later). As someone with zero experience in SQL Server and who learns very quickly, I shouldn't have too much problem with picking up the text, right? Boiled down, is the Ken Henderson series an "experts only" series? I read some of the Amazon exerpts, and it seems like it is not just for experts.
Opinions?
October 12, 2005 at 8:19 pm
Although the Henderson series of Guru vooks are must haves for anyone working with Sql Server, it's a bit intimidating for the beginner. Instead try something like the Murach book first.
Mathew J Kulangara
sqladventures.blogspot.com
October 13, 2005 at 9:37 am
I think you're right, MJK. I went to the local Borders to see if they had any of the Guru books, and they only had the TSQL book, so I read it for a bit. It's definitely an intermediate/expert's book.
I also just checked out the Murach's book via Amazon.com. It's exactly the kind of book I'm looking for, at this point! Perfect blend of SQL language and SQL Server newb stuff.
I'm going to see if I can get this book asap, and report back.
Thanks everyone!
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