SQLAuthority News – Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Books Online

SQL Server 2008, the latest release of Microsoft SQL Server, provides a comprehensive data platform. Books Online is the primary documentation for SQL Server 2008. This post links the download for SQL Server 2008 Books Online.

Books Online includes the following types of information:

• Setup and upgrade instructions.
• Information about new features and backward compatibility.
• Conceptual descriptions of the technologies and features in SQL Server 2008.
• Procedural topics describing how to use the various features in SQL Server 2008.
• Tutorials that guide you through common tasks.
• Reference documentation for the graphical tools, command prompt utilities, programming languages, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that are supported by SQL Server 2008.

Download Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Books Online

Abstract courtesy : Microsoft

A Simple Reading Plan for SQL Server 2008 Books Online

The documentation is huge, and new DBAs often open it only when something breaks. I think it is much more useful as a study guide. If you are new to SQL Server, go through it in a simple order instead of jumping around:

• Start with the tutorials. They are short, hands-on, and use sample databases, so you learn by doing.
• Next, read the Transact-SQL reference for the statements you use every day, like SELECT, INSERT and UPDATE. You will find options you never knew existed.
• Then read about system catalog views and dynamic management views. They are how you ask SQL Server about itself.
• Finally, read the backup and restore topics end to end before you need them, not during an outage.

Spend twenty minutes a day and run every example on a test machine. Change one thing in each example and see what happens. That small habit builds understanding much faster than copying scripts from the internet. Keep a notebook too. A one line summary of each page makes it stick, and later that notebook becomes your own quick reference. Try it for one month.

This download is from 2009 and the link may not work today. The same kind of material is online now on Microsoft Learn, and the reading plan works just as well there. The best time to start is before you need it.

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.