I’m a big fan of training and certification. It’s an increasingly important part of a professional IT worker’s career to stay in tune with current and new technologies. The Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Training Kit by Orin Thomas, Peter Ward and Bob Taylor from Microsoft Press is quite simply one of the best tools you could use to get to your 70-462 exam success.
The format of the guide is a step-by-step delivery of knowledge and content with accompanying exercises to strengthen the skills from each section and chapter as you progress through the book. If you are new to SQL Server, or looking to enhance yourself by certifying in SQL Server 2012, you will find this book to be well laid out.
The content covers every aspect needed for your exam including installation, maintenance, optimization, security and high availability configuration. I’ve been a long time user of Microsoft SQL Server, and after putting my time in with this book I realized how under-utilized my installations have been.
If you are an advanced SQL Administrator, you may find the cadence and pacing of the book slower than you may like. This is meant to be a training and certification guide, so the content is geared towards the core competencies needed to achieve your 70-462 exam.
All in all, I am definitely better for having read this book.
