Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices is an anthology of high-end wisdom from a group of accomplished database administrators who are quietly but relentlessly pushing the performance and feature envelope of Microsoft SQL Server 2012. With an emphasis upon performance—but also branching into release management, auditing, and other issues—the book helps you deliver the most value for your company’s investment in Microsoft’s flagship database system

Goes beyond the manual to cover good techniques and best practices
Delivers knowledge usually gained only by hard experience
Focuses upon performance, scalability, reliability
Helps achieve the predictability needed to be in control at all times

What you’ll learn

Migrate to the new Extended Events framework for troubleshooting performance problems
Automate the tracking of key performance indicators such as available disk space, cpu utilization, index fragmentation, and more
Design performance into your database and its applications from the very beginning
Manage staged releases from development to test through to production
Diagnose resource and performance problems via dynamic management views
Analyze I/O patterns and plan reliably to obtain the performance you need

Who this book is for

Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices is aimed at SQL Server professionals who want to further their careers through expert-level practices in performance management, scalability, predictability, and security.
Table of Contents

Jesper Johansen. Be Your Developer’s Best Friend
Louis Davidson. Getting It Right: Designing for Database Performance
Gail Shaw. Hidden Performance Gotchas
Kellyn Pot’vin. Dynamic Management Views
Mladen Prajdic. From SQL Trace to Extended Events
Chris Shaw. The Utility Database
Jason Strate. Indexing Outside the Bubble
TJay Belt. Release Management
Jonathan Gardner. Compliance and Auditing
Jes Borland. Automating Administration
Wendy Pastrick. The Fluid Dynamics of SQL Server Data Movement
Herve Roggero. Windows Azure Features for DBAs
Jeremy Lowell. I/O: The Untold Story
Bradley Ball. Page and Row Compression
Glenn Berry. Selecting and Sizing the Server
Grant Fritchey. Backups and Restores Using Availability Groups
Carlos Bossy. Big Data for the SQL Server DBA
Ben DeBow. Tuning for Peak Load