Steven R. McEvoy said
This book was a team effort from the Solid Quality Learning team. The authors include: Daren Bieniek, Randy Dyess, Mike Hotek, Javier Loria, Adam Machanic, Antonia Soto and Adolfo Wiernik. In my experience, sometimes group projects like that fail because of too many hands in the pot. Not in this case. This book is excellently written. The Self-Paced Training Kits (SPTK), are designed for just that - for a person to be able to buy it, and work through the material, either to prepare for the certification exam, or because they want to deepen their knowledge of a product, to either be more proficient in their job or to advance their career. This book will help reach all of those objectives and more. At nearly a thousand pages it is chock full of information to absorb; fortunately it is structured in such a way as to make that possible.
Each chapter begins with a brief introduction of the concepts to be covered. Each concept has its own section. Then there is a great lesson Summary to review and highlight the objectives of the chapters and what you should now know. Then there is a written review, both theoretical questions and practical case studies. The software on the student CD, has self tests, that can be used for chapter review of certification prep. They can be used both in a learning mode or exam mode.
This book was used in the Microsoft academy that I attended. It is a great resource that I am sure to reference for years to come.
Marlon A. Ribunal said
[...]
This book is the only book I needed to pass the exam.[...]Of course, it goes without saying that you need an actual experience of the database in order for you to pass the exam (specially the simulation challenges).
Personally, I like the tear-out because it guided me throughout my study of the lessons. Going from page one to the end, page to page, could be overwhelming. The six major topics in the tear-out objectives guideline simplify the study process (you go by "theme").
I am very satisfied with this book, not only because I passed the 70-431 exam but also it serves as a good reference.
Highly recommended!
-Marlon Ribunal
[..]
Mick G said
As an exam preparation guide it just about did the job for me; I read the whole book, did all the exercises and practice tests and passed the exam. However, I was disappointed to find so many errors in the book, some of which were not listed on Microsoft's own corrections page for this book on the web, even now, four years after publication. Frustratingly, I also found that some of the answers to practice tests on the CD are blatantly incorrect, leaving me to wonder what to do if the same questions came up in the real exam: give the correct answer or the answer on the CD? On the positive side, Microsoft's Training Kit team responded quickly to my suggestions and incorporated them into the corrections page. I would urge anyone who buys this or any other Microsoft Press book to go to the corrections page at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/support/books/, pencil the corrections into the book before reading and report any unlisted errors that they find.
Eric Kassan said
This book covers the material for the basic SQL 2005 exam fairly well. If one does most of the exercises, one should be able to pass the exam. The practice tests that come with the book are unrealistically difficult - I never cracked 80% on them, yet scored 92% on the exam.
I was a little disappointed that they left out a big step in mirroring - one needs to poke holes in the Windows firewall for it to work. But other than that, the instructions were quite clear, and it was trivial for me to implement log shipping and replication just from reading the book. The book also comes with a coupon for about $20 off the cost of the exam - a nice plus.
Calvin Johnstun said
I work with SQL on a daily basis, mostly running queries. I needed a book to fill in all of the holes since I was self taught. This book is a great start at filling in the gaps. It covers everything from the different versions to understanding the design of full-text catalogs. There is also some good material on queries. Great book even if you are not going for a SQL cert.
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