Search results matching tag 'Tips'

Squishy Limits in SQL Server Express Edition

KKline — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:19:00 GMT

It's an old story you've probably heard before. Provide a free version of your software product with strict limitations on performance or other specific capabilities so that folks can give it a try without risk, while you minimize the chance of cannibalizing sales of your commercial products. Microsoft has take this strategy with SQL Server Express Edition, not only to increase adoption in the student market but also to counter the threat of open-source (i.e. free) relational databases like MySQL for entry-level applications.

One such limitation of SQL Server Express Edition is that it supports no more than 1GB of RAM for the instance. Of course, you could have many Express Edition instances on a single Windows server, each with its own 1GB of RAM.

But what does that metric of 1GB of RAM actually mean? The key thing to remember is that the restriction is for buffer cache. Since SQL Server has many other caches, even when not counting the plan cache, there are plenty of other caches within SQL Server. (Run a query against sys.dm_os_memory_clerks if you'd like to see some of the others). Because only the buffer cache has the strict 1GB limitation, you can actually watch SQL Server Express Edition's memory working set size grow to around 1.4-1.5GB due to the other memory caches at play.

Pawel Potasinski, a SQL Server MVP from Poland (Twitter | Blog), once posted an interesting repro for this behavior:

-- Assess amount of databases resident in buffer cache

SELECT
 CASE
 WHEN database_id = 32767 THEN 'mssqlsystemresource'
 ELSE DB_NAME(database_id)
 END AS [Database],
 CONVERT(numeric(38,2),(8.0 / 1024) * COUNT(*)) AS [MB in buffer cache] 
FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors 
GROUP BY database_id 
ORDER BY 2 DESC; 
GO

-- Assess amount of tables resident in buffer cache
SELECT
 QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(p.object_id)) + '.' +
 QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(p.object_id)) AS [Object],
 CONVERT(numeric(38,2),(8.0 / 1024) * COUNT(*)) AS [MB In buffer cache] 
FROM sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors AS d 
 INNER JOIN sys.allocation_units AS u ON d.allocation_unit_id = u.allocation_unit_id 
 INNER JOIN sys.partitions AS p ON (u.type IN (1,3) AND u.container_id = p.hobt_id) OR (u.type = 2 AND u.container_id = p.partition_id) 
WHERE d.database_id = DB_ID() 
GROUP BY QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(p.object_id)) + '.' + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(p.object_id))
ORDER BY [Object] DESC;
GO

-- Fill up Express Edition's buffer allocation
IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.test', N'U') IS NOT NULL
 DROP TABLE dbo.test;
GO

CREATE TABLE dbo.test (col_a char(8000));
GO

INSERT INTO dbo.test (col_a)
 SELECT REPLICATE('col_a', 8000)
 FROM sys.all_objects 
 WHERE is_ms_shipped = 1;

CHECKPOINT; 
GO 100

The bottom line for the hard memory limit of SQL Server Express Edition is "Yes, it's limited. But it's a squishy limit. Not a hard limit."

Although your mileage may vary, I'd bet a dollar that you'll find more than 1GB in the active working set for your instance of SQL Server Express Edition. I am curious, however, if you're seeing much variation between versions and even service packs of SQL Server? Let me know if you try this out on more than one version and/or service pack level of SQL Server. Did it change much between versions? Let me know!

Enjoy,

-Kevin

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Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts

KKline — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:50:00 GMT

I'm doing two new webcasts next week on Wednesday, December 19th, one in the morning and the other after lunch.

SSDs are a Game Changer for SQL Server Storage

No, session is not exclusively about SSDs. But this is my first session on IO and storage tuning that emphasizes SSDs over hard disks. As Bob Dylan said "Times, they are a'changin'". This session on Wednesday, December 19th at 11:30 AM EST, sponsored by Astute Networks, takes you through all of the basics of storage and IO tuning, regardless of the underlying storage technology. I'll show you how SQL Server handles storage structures, how to identify IO activity on Windows and SQL Server, and best practices for minimizing IO bottlenecks. Register now for: Storage IO Best Practices for SQL Server and a New Approach to Solving Application Performance Issues.

Write Better SQL Queries

The next webcast on Wednesday, December 19th at 2 PM EST, is with me, Aaron Bertrand (Twitter | Blog) and SQLCruise Impresario & Microsoft MVP Tim Ford (Twitter | Blog) as we take you through the query tuning process, discussing important DMVs to use during query tuning, as well as demonstrating several essential query tuning techniques that every SQL developer should know. Not only are we presenting an hour of top quality technical content, we’ll also be giving away some cool prizes, including the grand prize of a paid registration for the upcoming SQLCruise Miami, a $1,395 value! Register now for: SQL Server Query Tuning Best Practices, Hosted by Kevin Kline and Aaron Bertrand with special guest Tim Ford

I hope to see you at both of these sessions next week! Best regards,

-Kev

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Quick Tip - Speed a Slow Restore from the Transaction Log

KKline — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:59:00 GMT

Here's a quick tip for you:

During some restore operations on Microsoft SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time. Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. To do this, you should use the MAXTRANSFERSIZE parameter of the RESTORE statement. For example, if you set MAXTRANSFERSIZE=1048576, it'll use 1MB buffers.

If you change the MAXTRANSFERSIZE, keep an eye on the PerfMon objects for Buffer Manager and Readahead IO. You may also wish to keep an eye on LOGBUFFER wait stats.

I'd love to hear your feedback. Have you tried this technique? Did it work as advertised? Did it require some changes to work on a specific version or edition?

Many thanks,

-Kev

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The Zombie PerfMon Counter That Never Dies! Quick Tip

KKline — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:55:00 GMT

The PerfMon Counters That Just Won't Die

One of the things that's simultaneously great and horrible about the Internet is that once something gets posted out in the ether, it basically never goes away. (Some day, politicians will realize this. We can easily fact check their consistency). Because of longevity of content posted to the Internet, a lot of performance tuning topics become "zombies". We shoot 'em in dead, but they keep coming back!

In other words, those old recommendations were a suggested best practices for long ago, for a specific version of SQL Server, but are now inappropriately for the newer version. It's not uncommon for me, when speaking at a conference, to encounter someone who's still clinging to settings and techniques which haven't been good practice since the days of SQL Server 2000. Here's an example of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Best Practices that are very version-specific.

So here's an example. The %Disk Time counter and the Disk Queue Length were heavily recommended as a key performance indicator for IO performance. SQL Server throws a lot of IO at the disks using scatter/gather to maximize the utilization of the disk-based IO subsystem. This approach leads to short bursts of long queue depths during checkpoints and readaheads for an instance of SQL Server. Sometimes the server workload is such that your disk can't keep up with the IO shoved at it and when that happens, you'll see long queue lengths too. The short burst scenario isn't a problem. The lengthening queue length scenario usually is a problem. So is that a good practice?

In a word, not-so-much.

Those counters can still be of some use on an instance of SQL Server which only has one hard disk drive. But that's exceedingly rare these days. Why?

The PerfMon counter %Disk time is a bogus performance metric for several reasons. It does not take into account asynchronous I/O requests. It can't tell what the real performance profile is for an underlying RAID set may be, since they contain multiple disk drives. The PerfMon counter Disk Queue Length is also mostly useless, except on SQL Server's with a single physical disk, because the hard disk controller cache obfuscates how many IO operations are actually pending on the queue or not. In fact, some hard disks even have tiny write caches as well, which further muddies the water was to whether the IO is truly queued, in a cache somewhere between the OS and the disk, or has finally made it all the way to the CMOS on the disk.

Better IO PerfMon Counters

Instead of using those PerfMon counters, use the Ave Disk Reads /sec, Avg Disk Write /sec, and Avg Disk Transfers/sec to track the performance of disk subsystems. These counters track the average number of read IOs, write IOs, and combined read and write IOs to occured in the last second. Occassionally, I like to track the same metrics by volume of data rather than the rate of IO operations. So, to get that data, you may wish to give these volume-specific PerfMon counters a try: Avg Disk Transfer Bytes/sec, Ave Disk Read Bytes /sec, and Avg Disk Write Bytes/sec

For SQL Server IO Performance, Use Dynamic Management Views (DMV)

And unless you've been living in a cave, you should make sure to use SQL Server's Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) to check on IO performance for recent versions of SQL Server. Some of my favorite DMV's for IO include:

Sys.dm_os_wait_stats
Sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks
Sys.dm_os_performance_counters
Sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats
Sys.dm_io_pending_io_requests
Sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats
Sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats

Many of these DMVs are fully document in this Books Online article here at Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Index Related Dynamic Management Views and Functions.

So how are you tracking IO performance metrics? Which ones are you using?

I look forward to hearing back from you!

Enjoy,

-Kev

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Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.

KKline — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:03:00 GMT

I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to right, Gabriel Villa (Twitter), me, Chris Shaw, and Rebecca Mitchell (Twitter). If it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have been there. Thanks for putting in the time, amigo!

New Slide Decks!

During the 3-day jaunt, I presented two of my more popular sessions. These are updated slide decks, in case you want to download them here:

UG - End-to-End Troubleshooting

and

UG - Top 10 SQL Server Administration Mistakes

Be sure to check in the Slides area of the website, if you want to see the links for SpeakerRate, and in the case of several of my presentations, white papers, video recordings, etc. It's the People that Matter

A Blast from the SQLPASS Past!

I've always tried to maintain the relationships I built with the founding members of the PASS board of directors. After their time on the PASS board, almost all of them have moved on from SQL Server to other adventures. Pam Smith, the first president of the organization, is now a professor. Guy Brown, the second president, is now the director of IT at his same employer, rather than just SQL Server as when he was on the PASS board. A few, such as Kurt Windisch, a former VP of PASS, and my good friend Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), are still active in the SQL Server space. One relationship that I've enjoyed over the years is with PASS' original Microsoft liaison and now a Denver-area software entrepreneur Steve Murchie (at right) running his own healthcare IT outfit. Steve has been a source of inspiration to me and also of great advice for all things startup-related. It was great to connect with Steve and catch up on his latest doings.

I also got to enjoy an evening out with the local attendees after the Denver user group meeting. It was great to hang out with folks there. I got to meet Kevin Cox (twitter), a member of Microsoft's incredibly talented SQLCAT group, and for whom I was a technical editor on a SQL Server v6.5 book back in the Neanderthal era. That shows just how old both Kevin and I actually are. Other cool folks that I got to meet included Steve Wake, Mike Fal, Marc Beacom, Jason Kassay, Jason Horner and my ol' buddy, Kelly the Greeley Geek.

On top of that, long-time SQL Server MVP and all-around awesome guy Steve Jones (Twitter | Blog) visited. I kept him out way too late that night which, to be honest, isn't usually my style. But the good conversation propelled us on past midnight.

The Good Folks at SQL Server Professional and Windows IT Professional Magazines

I've written for SQL Server Professional (formerly the artist known as "SQLMag") in some form or another starting from my first cover article for them way back in the mid 1990's. My Tool Time column has been going strong there since, oh, around 2006 iirc. For most of the time I've known the folks at SQLMag, they were located in Loveland, CO but they were able to move to some incredibly nice digs just up the road in Fort Collins. In all the many years, I've written for them, I'd never been to their offices - until now. It was great to visit and break bread with Megan (to my right), Blair (across), and Jaylee (across and to my right)!

I've always supported SQLMag and encourage you to subscribe. On top of the goodness already in the digital magazine, there are some neat developments coming down the pipeline with SQLMag which I think we'll all enjoy. Be sure to subscribe today! (You can click the badge on the left or simply go to http://www.sqlmag.com).

What's Next?

My current travel schedule is pinned up on this blog post HERE. However, I also know of a couple on-line appearances and probably a trip between the long gap between now and my next in-person appearance at the Orlando SQL Saturday at the end of September, where I'll also be teaching a pre-conference seminar (register HERE for the seminar).

SSWUG

The first on-line event to note is my a presentation by SSWUG of my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals video series, starting on August 24th. Sign up using the hyperlink (note that a video plays immediately upon loading the webpage, in case you want to be ready to pause or stop it). You can also buy a DVD set of the 14 hours of leadership training content.

24HOP - The 24 Hours of PASS Event

I'll also be speaking on the topic of influence in the next 24 Hours of PASS coming up on September 20th and 21st. Registration for the twenty-four hours of around the clock presentations is completely free and well worth your time. Check the schedule for the event and register! Even if you can only watch one or two sessions (or even zero sessions), be sure to register so that you'll automatically be notified when the sessions become available as streaming media.

Enjoy!

-Kev

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New Developments at SQLServerPedia.com

KKline — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:07:00 GMT

What's Going on at SQLServerPedia.com?

Since the news broke that I was leaving Quest, I've gotten a lot of questions about the future of SQLServerPedia.com (SSP). For those of you who don't know, SSP is a very popular community wiki and blog aggregator with nearly one hundred bloggers actively syndicating their content on the site. Quest actively supports SSP as a non-commercial community entity and I was its former editor-in-chief. The good news is that SSP is not going anywhere. If you write for a blog that appears on SSP, don't change a thing. (Ok, change one thing. Start adding more content to the wiki!)

Maybe I Should Syndicate at SQLServerPedia.com?

If you're actively blogging but not currently syndicating your content there, do so! Details for syndicating on SSP are located here. A few reminders and changes worth noting from what is written on the syndication page:

Under section 1.4, 'What if You Don't Have a Blog Yet?', the team is no longer able to help you with setting up, editing, and fact checking blog posts.
Related to the item above, we vastly prefer to syndicate blogs demonstrating at least six months of active posting. Many bloggers start with good intentions and then fade away. Usually, if you've done it for six months, you're in it for the long haul. Although exceptions are made occasionally, your certain to be accepted as a syndicate with six months of posts.
No posting about commercial products (or even free products offered by commercial entities). That rule also applies to Quest people. Just keepin' it real, folks!
Limit the topics to those that are of interest to SQL Server people. The topics can be about non-SQL Server things, such as other related technologies, leadership, productivity, personal development, and so forth. But it should be at least relevant and interesting to SQL Server people.

Aside from that, what are you waiting for?!? Don't you want thousands more reads on your blog per week without adding inappropriate references to Justin Bieber (blog | twitter), American Idol (blog | twitter), and teen-pop sensation One Direction (blog | twitter)? (You saw what I just did there, didn't you?)

One Tiny Achievement

One thing I'm proud of while I was editor-in-chief at SSP was to evangelize the citation syntax that now seems to be standard practice in the blogging world of "Blogger Name (blog_link | twitter_link)." I wrote about this blog citation syntax first in March of 2010. I'm proud of that. I also introduced badges for site contributors, like the one below.

Aside from those things, I don't think I really moved the needle much because, honestly, I already had too much other work on my plate.

And the New SQLServerPedia.com Editor-in-Chief IS... [drumroll]

... my friend and former colleague, Richard Douglas. Richard Douglas is a SQL Server consultant for Quest Software in the UK covering the gamut of SQL Server products in both a pre- and post-sales capacity. Richard is often performs on-site server health checks to ensure systems are running optimally and to provide feedback on problem areas of database performance. Prior to working for Quest, Richard was working as a DBA in women's clothing. Hmmm, let me clarify. No ... he was not working IN women's clothing. He wore regular men's clothing. The company he worked for was in the womens' clothing business. Whew! That's better. In fact, here's a picture to prove that he, at least occasionally, wears men's clothing:

Richard is active in the UK SQL Server community having been a volunteer at SQLBits. He now runs a PASS chapter and is on the organizing committee for SQLRelay, a series of events around the UK which drew hundreds of attendees this year, he holds several certifications in SQL Server 2008.

Richard's online presence includes: email Richard.Douglas@Quest.com, blog http://SQL.RichardDouglas.co.uk, twitter http://twitter.com/SQLRich, and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpdouglas. Please take a moment to say hi!

Enjoy,

-Kevin

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In the Cloud, Everything Costs Money

BuckWoody — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:55:50 GMT

I’ve been teaching my daughter about budgeting. I’ve explained that most of the time the money coming in is from only one or two sources – and you can only change that from time to time. The money going out, however, is to many locations, and it changes all the time. She’s made a simple debits and credits spreadsheet, and I’m having her research each part of the budget. Her eyes grow wide when she finds out everything has a cost – the house, gas for the lawnmower, dishes, water for showers, food, electricity to run the fridge, a new fridge when that one breaks, everything has a cost. She asked me “how do you pay for all this?” It’s a sentiment many adults have looking at their own budgets – and one reason that some folks don’t even make a budget. It’s hard to face up to the realities of how much it costs to do what we want to do.

When we design a computing solution, it’s interesting to set up a similar budget, because we don’t always consider all of the costs associated with it. I’ve seen design sessions where the new software or servers are considered, but the “sunk” costs of personnel, networking, maintenance, increased storage, new sizes for backups and offsite storage and so on are not added in. They are already on premises, so they are assumed to be paid for already.

When you move to a distributed architecture, you'll see more costs directly reflected. Store something, pay for that storage. If the system is deployed and no one is using it, you’re still paying for it. As you watch those costs rise, you might be tempted to think that a distributed architecture costs more than an on-premises one.

And you might be right – for some solutions. I’ve worked with a few clients where moving to a distributed architecture doesn’t make financial sense – so we didn’t implement it. I still designed the system in a distributed fashion, however, so that when it does make sense there isn’t much re-architecting to do.

In other cases, however, if you consider all of the on-premises costs and compare those accurately to operating a system in the cloud, the distributed system is much cheaper. Again, I never recommend that you take a “here-or-there-only” mentality – I think a hybrid distributed system is usually best – but each solution is different. There simply is no “one size fits all” to architecting a solution.

As you design your solution, cost out each element. You might find that using a hybrid approach saves you money in one design and not in another. It’s a brave new world indeed.

So yes, in the cloud, everything costs money. But an on-premises solution also costs money – it’s just that “dad” (the company) is paying for it and we don’t always see it. When we go out on our own in the cloud, we need to ensure that we consider all of the costs.

Windows Azure End to End Examples

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:45:59 GMT

I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring.

Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use.

And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use.

CodePlex

CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server.

If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage.

The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want.

Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8

Tailspin

Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well.

The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource.

The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended.

Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx

Azure Stock Trader

Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform.

That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs.

I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure.

The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.

Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

Flexibility When Waiting on Locks

KKline — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:29:00 GMT

Speaking at a recent SQL Saturday, an attendee in one of my sessions wanted to know how they could more flexibly react to locks on their application than to wait for blocks to occur and then kill the SPID at the head of the blocking chain. They were also interested in some alternatives to using the SQL Server syntax like the WITH (NOLOCK) hint, since that might have unintended consequences due to allowing reads on uncommitted data.

One alternative I suggested is the SET LOCK_TIMEOUT n statement. Since most of the attendees hadn't heard of this statement, I figured it'd make a good blog post.

When using the statement, you can set this context for the connection, for a batch of code (such as a function or stored procedure), or for a single SQL statement (excluding a few DDL statements such as CREATE/ALTER DATABASE). By passing a numeric value with the set statement, you specify the number of milliseconds that the statement will wait for a lock to be released before returning a locking error. 0 means don't wait at all and -1, the default, means wait forever. Once changed, the new setting stays in effect for the remainder of the connection. So you might want to set it back to the default if you want it to apply to only one statement, say a SELECT, in a big batch of statements.

You can also get the same behavior by using the READPAST locking hint.

Hope this helps with those troublesome locking situations! Enjoy,

-Kev

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Book Review (Book 11) - Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

BuckWoody — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:50:34 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for April 2012 was: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here.

Why I chose this book:

I actually know a few of the authors on this book, so when they told me about it I wanted to check it out. The premise of the book is exactly as it states in the title - to learn how to solve a problem using products from Microsoft.

What I learned:

I liked the book - a lot. They've arranged the content in a "Solution Decision Framework", that presents a few elements to help you identify a need and then propose alternate solutions to solve them, and then the rationale for the choice. But the payoff is that the authors then walk through the solution they implement and what they ran into doing it.

I really liked this approach. It's not a huge book, but one I've referred to again since I've read it. It's fairly comprehensive, and includes server-oriented products, not things like Microsoft Office or other client-side tools. In fact, I would LOVE to have a work like this for Open Source and other vendors as well - would make for a great library for a Systems Architect. This one is unashamedly aimed at the Microsoft products, and even if I didn't work here, I'd be fine with that. As I said, it would be interesting to see some books on other platforms like this, but I haven't run across something that presents other systems in quite this way.

And that brings up an interesting point - This book is aimed at folks who create solutions within an organization. It's not aimed at Administrators, DBA's, Developers or the like, although I think all of those audiences could benefit from reading it. The solutions are made up, and not to a huge level of depth - nor should they be. It's a great exercise in thinking these kinds of things through in a structured way.

The information is a bit dated, especially for Windows and SQL Azure. While the general concepts hold, the cloud platform from Microsoft is evolving so quickly that any printed book finds it hard to keep up with the improvements.

I do have one quibble with the text - the chapters are a bit uneven. This is always a danger with multiple authors, but it shows up in a couple of chapters. I winced at one of the chapters that tried to take a more conversational, humorous style. This kind of academic work doesn't lend itself to that style.

I recommend you get the book - and use it. I hope they keep it updated - I'll be a frequent customer. :)