Free SQL Server Publications

Contents







Newsletters

SQL Server newsletters are stuffed with useful information that helps both DBA's and programmers. Many of the articles written are based on real work experiences. These newsletters provide the opportunity to learn valuable lessons from other IT professionals. Training opportunities such as free webcasts and virtual labs are often mentioned. Many include announcements of new patches and releases. 


SQL Server Central - provides two excellent newsletters.

SQL Server Central Daily - this daily emailed newsletter provides links to SQL Server articles, active forum topics, featured script, question of the day, and an editorial. The newsletter includes articles published by its site and links to articles from other sites. These articles cover a variety of topics about SQL Server written by DBA's and programmers.

Database Weekly - is a database professionals dream. This weekly newsletter is a catalog of everything published on the Internet during the previous week that is relevant to the database professional. Each item includes a short description to help you quickly decide if the post is worth further investigation. Items included are articles, blogs, webcasts, and announcements. Let this newsletter scour the web for you for latest news that affects databases.

Simple-Talk - this newsletter provided by Red-Gate is delivered every two weeks or so. It provides excellent articles on SQL Server. The workbench articles are especially useful in how they address specific challenges.

SQL Team - this site provides a weekly newsletter that includes SQL Server articles and blogs. Each newsletter includes a SQL Server article published by this site.

SearchSQLServer.com - this site sends email newsletters consisting of articles relevant to topics you select. 

KBAlerts - informs you of new or updated Microsoft Knowledge Base articles by e-mail. The KB articles are limited to the Microsoft Technologies you select. Every DBA must be informed of any announced SQL Server problems and fixes. Subscribing to this newsletter will keep, a DBA apprised of these announcements.


MSSQLTips - is run by Edgewood Solutions. It publishes a variety of tips for SQL Server. When last checked they had over 350 published tips with most of them from Edgewood Solution Engineers. Many of these articles follow the format of stating a problem and then providing the solution. In addition, this site  provides an extensive directory of vendor product links for SQL Server. A newsletter subscription and a RSS feed option are both available.

Technet Magazine is a Microsoft publication containing information about all Microsoft IT products. It includes information specific to SQL Server and articles on free tools.


SQL Server Forums

Forums provide an opportunity to get answers to your questions about SQL Server. Many participants share scripts, stored procedures, functions etc... If you are looking for some help with SQL Server, then forums are the place to ask. For help with forum etiquette see Jeff Moden's article.

SQL Server Central provides a SQL Server only forum. It is very active. The active topics are included in its newsletter to assist with getting answers to any questions. Many subscribers use the forum to share scripts and techniques. Each article published by the newsletter has a dedicated topic opened to allow readers to ask questions and discuss the article.

MSDN Forum - Microsoft provides a collection of forums that cover SQL Server and other Microsoft Technologies. It is a good place to report problems with SQL Server because Microsoft employees do read them and respond. You may not get the answer you want or when you want it but it is a least a start.

MSDN SQL Server Forum - Microsoft's SQL Server forum.

SQLTeam Forum - Well established forum


Technology questions and answers - IT Knowledge Exchange - You can ask IT questions that are answered by your peers. This includes questions about SQL Server. This site also has 50 blogs as of 04/22/08. That covers all aspects of IT including several dedicated to Database software such as SQL Server.


SQL Server Blogs

SQL Server blogs consist of articles, scripts, how to instructions, ideas, or anything else the blogger thinks is relevant to SQL Server. After reading a post, the reader can leave comments that appear below the post. This feature provides feedback to the author and let other readers see what others thought of the article. Sometimes the comments are more useful than the post.

I have started subscribing to Blogs using an RSS feed to My Yahoo web portal. There are other ways to subscribe to RSS feeds. I just used my yahoo portal because I was already had one.

  • SQLServerPedia - is a blog with many SQL Server experts. Many nice posts on SQL Server Performance
  • SQL blog.com - The SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
  • SQL Server Blog Community - A UK based blogging community for SQL Server.
  • PSS SQL Server Engineers - This is the official team Web Log for Microsoft PSS SQL Support. Posts are mostly provided by the PSS SQL Escalation Services team.
  • SQLTeam.COM - active set of SQL Server blogger's with a newsletter. 
  • sqldbatips.com blog - Hints, tips, tricks and associated thoughts on SQL Server related topics from Jasper Smith
  • Grumpy OLD DBA - provides some excellent advice and tips for DBA's supporting SQL Server
  • SQL Server Knowledge Sharing Network (SqlServer-qa.net) - provides the latest announcements for SQL Server
  • SQL Server with Mr. Denny by Denny Cherry provides posts on all areas of SQL Server plus info on other technologies used as a DBA. 
  • Carpe Datum by Bucky Wood provides posts on the latest happenings of SQL Server. He does more than just repeat announcements he provides tips, reviews, instructions, and insights into latest in releases of Microsoft's SQL Server DBMS.
  • Strate SQL by Jason Strate. Provides instructional posts on managing, tuning, and querying SQL Sever. 
  • BI Blog by Dan English. Posts on Business Intelligence, databases, and other technologies.
  • SQL Server Blog by Tim Chapaman.  Includes instructional posts that contain scripts for administrating SQL Server. 
  • StatisticsIO by Jason Massie. This SQL Server blog contains lots of helpful information. The posts cover a variety of topics such as editorials, news, how to guides, lessons learned, and humor.
  • Business Intelligence and Agile Development by Ted Malone. Covers news, business intelligence, virtual studio, SQL Server, and  sharepoint.
  • SQL Server Performance by Glenn Berry. Scripts, news and advice.

SQL Blogs List


Books


WhitePapers



Additional Resources



<< Top >>