SQL Server Administration for Oracle DBAs

This comprehensive ebook, designed for the experienced Oracle DBA, explains key concepts that will give Oracle DBAs a firm foundation in mapping their Oracle database-management skills, knowledge, and experience to SQL Server database management. The ebook—comprised of nine in-depth chapters—not only covers the similarities and differences between Oracle and SQL Server but provides real-world tips and techniques for managing these technologies.

The ebook

Early database administrators had many challenges. Remember that for most of the past several hundred years, databases were literally flat files. Searching a "database" involved locating a dusty tome on a shelf and paging through it to locate the requisite information. I'm sure that you can also appreciate the difficulties that these pioneer DBAs faced when dealing with storage, backups, and creating indexes. Query response time was definitely not measured in milliseconds.

Times have changed, and excellent penmanship is no longer a primary requirement for you to do your job. Thank E.F. Codd, who wrote a paper in 1970 titled "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Banks." The information in this paper, along with a new reporting language called SQL, spurred the development of modern relational databases. The world was changed forever.

Every time you pay for groceries with a credit card, use an ATM machine, or even order a pizza, the information is stored in a database. Simply put, the relational database model breaks data into non-repeating sets and lets you relate them in any number of ways. Users can then manipulate and compare the data in an almost infinite number of representations—and instantly.

Two of the leading relational database management systems (RDBMSs) are Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Many main concepts and functions of these two technologies are similar. At their core, they both let you store and compare information. This ebook explores the similarities and differences between the two systems while introducing SQL Server to experienced Oracle DBAs. In the following nine chapters, you'll gain the information you need to map your existing Oracle knowledge and experience to SQL Server and real-world tips and techniques for managing these technologies.

— Scalability Experts