As a DBA, I wanted to find a resource that would give me most of what I needed in a small package that was easy to carry. Books Online is a good resource but has a number of bugs. As a result, Microsoft has had to issue updates to correct the documentation on Books Online. Besides, you can’t always have a computer handy when you want to refresh your memory on how SQL Server works on a cluster or the command-line options for the DTSRUN command. This book is designed to solve those problems by providing information on the common tasks performed by database administrators in a concise package.In this title you will not find detailed explanations on every single option for every single Transact-SQL command—other books and Books Online give you this in spades. What you will find is enough information to be able to do your job effectively, including how to program in SQL Server—something all DBAs should understand at a basic level. Topics covered include security; understanding how SQL Server works; creating databases and database objects; performing backups and restores; automating administration and data extraction, transformation and load; monitoring and tuning SQL Server; distributed transactions and replication; and clustering and log shipping. For any DBA involved with the day-to-day administration of SQL Server and making it work in enterprise environments, this book will give you what you need, but not overwhelm you.