Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2014 1st Edition

For the price $0.00 on Kindle when I "bought it", if your are interested in Microsoft SQL, you can't go past this book. Of course, the biggest cost with any book is actually the time spent reading it...and in this case, it definitely gave me a good intro to the things in SQL 2014 that I should be paying attention to. I should say that I am an infrequent "DBA" across multiple platforms, so am familiar with the technology, but consider myself as an amateur.If you are involved in Big Data, it includes some useful introductory info about the Microsoft approach.So often these kinds of books feel like they are written by marketers, or people who have only just played with a beta - but this book isn't that type. I'd pay good money for this. Recommended.

It's an introduction. Done well.I'm gravely concerned by the lack of thorough and technical resources appearing for the technologies emerging with each new and rapid release, save a handful of white papers that seem to appear at the end of "v current." Even samples and tutorials are not keeping pace.

I feel like this leaves out a lot of stuff that I need.

General information - good, of limited tech/in depth usage.

Good technical information about the technical capabilities of SQL Server 2014. The authors explain features like in-memory tables and always-on availability groups clearly

This book reads like an extended advertisement for Microsoft products. It needs more substance and useful information about SQL Server itself, and less brand marketing and prosletizing for MS.

The book has useful information, but it's more about the changes in Microsoft SQL from versions to version, not really an overview of the program

It didn't come with training CD.

The book I read to research this post was Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Technical Overview by Ross Mistry et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is quite long and is a free download on kindle so represents good value. It isn't a how to guide and hasn't enough space to cover all the features of SQL Server but is aimed at Database Administrators who want the general picture prior to upgrading. The new version integrates with the cloud product Windows Azure so it is like a hybrid cloud product. In addition you can save data to a URL if you use a 3rd party cloud site or company website. There are several major versions which are Enterprise, Business Intelligence & Standard. In addition there are some cheaper niche products Web, Developer & Express version with Express being a free entry level product. With the Enterprise version you can have up to 2048 processors on the server and up to 8,000 virtual account users. It is very much for large companies. The Express version lets you have tables up to 10 GB so is very much aimed at small businesses. It integrates with Excel which if you get one of the current Professional Plus or standalone versions has features like powerpivot tables for doing statistical analysis on data. They did start to move in this direction with the 2010 version and the 2013 & 365 versions contain a lot of additional features. This will normally have Windows 2012 R2 as the operating system but will also work to a lesser extent with Windows 8. Windows 2012 has many cloud computing features many specific to certain providers. In fact is the main upgrade in that program. I'm not hugely knowledgeable about SQL Server but found this book very interesting and with it being free you can't go wrong. Microsoft Press are doing free entry level books on the various current Microsoft products for free to help sell them with more specialized publications obviously for sale that you have to buy.

It's great to have these type of books available on Kindle as I need them as reference all the time.

Ross knocks this out of the park with a great book!

excellent quality and quick delivery thank you

good clear introduction to new features