Backup Books

Agree with above comments regarding technical details on log shipping and clustering... But this book really gives what I needed for planning db backups at my company. I wish more technical people would take the time to well plan for backups instead of focusing on implementation which you cvan lookup in Books Online.

I found this book to be helpful in planning and designing a trustworthy back-up plan. I'm a DBA who is responsible for backing up 6 database servers and I rely heavily on this book. It provides good examples of how to back-up multiple servers and has advice on how to make it work well. If your just looking for info on the BACKUP and RESTORE commands, just use Books Online. BUt if you want to imlpement a full back-up plan for SQL Server in your environment, this is a great resource. Its easy to read and includes many realistic examples. Highly recommended.

While I would love to find a great book on advanced backup and recovery techniques for SQL Server 7, this is not the book. This book is far to general and full of fluff to provide the information you really need. It many ways, the book tries to cover a little of everything about being a SQL Server DBA, but it ends up doing a poor job of covering any topic.

I was hoping to find advanced information on log shipping and clustering. While these topics are touched on, they don't provide you the information you really need.

If you need a book on the basics of SQL Server 7 backup, most any book covering basic SQL Server 7 DBA responsibilities should fit the bill. This book is a waste of your time.

I bought this book because of its name. However after I read it, I am very disappointed.

The reason is that

1. It does not not cover in-depth experience/knowledge/troubleshooting. 2. The details of the table are like a plate of salad. So much NT and SQL Server basic stuff most of reader should already know and do not want read it. 3. The most disappointing part is that it does not touch real-world trouble from SQL DBA about backup and restore.

This is a great book to give you a starting place when starting a backup project - if your looking for in depth WinNT information, you'll have to find another book, or ask in a forum.

I had a particular objective in mind in choosing this book for review. I am not terribly familiar with NT and having been forced to install an NT server for a customer recently, I wanted a reference on the backup procedures - so serious am I about the importance of backups. I need not have bothered!
There are twelve chapters and three appendices. Only three chapters are specific to NT and one of these deals with software from third parties (Arcserve, ADSM, Backup Express, etc.). The other chapters are very general and deal with concepts that are not at all peculiar to NT.

So, much as I respect the O'Reilly publications and much as I fear the consequences of badly managed backups, I cannot recommend this book to anyone who is other than a complete novice. Most of the material (backup regimes, network considerations, hardware devices) is either old-hat, readily available elsewhere or common sense. It is certainly not peculiar to NT. Even recommending it to beginners leaves me in a dilemma - beginners should not be made responsible for backing up a critical server and if the server is not critical then the on-line, NT help screens are probably all that is needed. Certainly, I found them sufficient.

For the level of user at which this book is aimed, I think the main problem is emphasising the importance of backups per se.

(Personally I adopt a military stance and become a martinet!) This might take a book on psychology or persuasion, not on the performance of DLT. Ms. Leber should not be writing books, she should be heading to see a shrink.

This book is excellent. I work on an extremely large backup project (1000+ servers), and I found that Ms. Leber accurately covered all of the issues that we've had to deal with (both technical and non-technical). The book contains a wealth of information about backup issues for NT, but it also contains alot of general information that would be relevant to backing up any platform, so it would probably be useful to people who were responsible for backups in general.

This book is a complete waste of time. I understand the author's intentions in trying to create a 'cost-effective' and 'efficient' guide but I think he is totally out of grip if he thinks that an eight-day start-up period is an acceptable time-frame to get a technology dependant company back up and running after a disaster. An internet reliant company can lose significant market share after only hours of downtime! I understand that in some companies Dr planning doesn't recieve the attention it should from top management but that doesn't excuse the lame grovelling and coddling that this book suggests Dr planners should employ to further their agenda

For the money, Myers's book on contingency planning should be on every BCP/DR manager's shelf. Its layout allows for quick review and easy reference, and the sample plan that can be used as a foundation to build your own plan. While nothing new comes out of this book, it is refreshing to see good, cost effective and logical fundamentals being written about. It's a back to basics approach to getting everyone educated and involved. The simple wording allows for the "not so computer savvy" manager to understand the issues. The only thing missing that I was hoping to read about is how BCP implementation & documentation will improve the day-to-day efficiencies in the workplace. He alludes to this fact, but should explore how to use this information to help sell the overall program.

I found this 4xCD instruction set to be clear and concise but in some ways difficult given the lack of printed text or meaningful index. To a beginner, the instruction set would be a valuable reference as every aspect is well explained and demonstrated. Conversely, this is unlikely to be very challenging to an experienced amateur musician as there are long monologues interspersed with sometimes very basic dobro fills that could easily be picked up from any commercial recording. By the fourth CD I had expected to find more advanced techniques and exercises to help develop speed, accuracy and more elaborate fills, but found in fact that the competency level is really quite basic across all CD's. However, there are several nuggets of dobro fills throughout that I found excellent and would be valuable to any player...admittedly though, hunting for them was a chore.

This is not a shortcut to be a great celtic guitar player.
This is a book full of solid theory about different modes, different style, choice of chords....

Praiseworthy, ambitious and potentially definitive goal : help wannabe sessioneers develop the skills to accompany Celtic music in real time, by ear, and on virtually any instrument. Wow..!

The potentially interesting stuff -the four main Irish modes (scales), the related chords and their possible substitutes- starts on page 24, but is, unfortunately, explained from a very awkward initial angle, one that makes it all unnecessarily hard to memorise. With other explanations building on these, this will be where, for many, the trip already ends.

With some very useful explanations and many reinforcing exercises, however, this remains a book of some promise. In the event, however, it falls short, and -frustratingly- for yet more wrong reasons. For example :

- far too little emphasis on commonalites / differences between various modes, instruments and tunings, such as strategies for chord sharing between modes, the idea of movable (generic) chords, and capo usage recommendations). Sure it's challenging, but should be core material.

- no distinction between the various Celtic traditions. How do I get that brooding Scottish sound? What modes are common in Wales? What backing instruments are used in Breton music? Where the *** is Portugal? :-)

- a wordy, slightly pedantic style somewhat removed from the ways (and needs) of at least this session player. Decidedly irritating : an 11-page introductory sermon on what it takes to be a session player (!?) followed by an 8-page, 15-point improvisation plan - window dressing belonging -if at all- well behind the more basic explanations and hard grind of later sections.

- some confusion with the "vocabulary" of jazz (don't want to spoil the fun, but since when were diminished chords in widespread use in traditional Celtic music..?)

- the reel exercises all seem to build on an assumption that accents lie ON the beat. May work in the lands of the kilt and cornemuse, but this is a death sentence for the related Irish dances. Though many session accompanists have completely lost touch with dance -and hence with their special pulse- OFF-beat accenting remains brash, uniquely Irish, and devastatingly sexy. Where are the related exerises?

- many exercises are a touch too "bitty", leaving a nagging doubt whether real progress is being made.

- Otherwise, tuning recommendations for easy accompaniment on various common backing instruments.

A little more imagination while guessing at buyer's needs, and more restraint in letting his own shine through (was his publisher asleep?), and this book could have been a thorough best-seller. Though certainly useful, it should be read with caution, and probably can't be read in isolation.

Incidentally, though also incomplete (and aimed rather specifically at DADGAD guitar players), Han Speek's well-known explanation -by means of inversion- of the basics of modes and chord scales in Irish music does a neater job of answering beginners questions, and is -dammit- free.

I just got this book and so far it appears that it will be quite helpful since it does bring together a wealth of sources but I do have a couple of points to make.

The author does a great job listing the songs he referenced in part 2 in the back of the book. Now I know where to go to hear the recordings he uses as examples. BUT!! Part one references a song that is NOT listed. The entire first chapter is based on a song called The Little Old Cabin in the Lane. Why isn't it referenced? Seems like a huge oversight. Sure I may be able to find a recording of the song but which one did the author use?

Also, I think most books for beginners in a genre almost always include a section on how to read the notation. I can't tell you how many versions of "tab" I've seen. They may be the same to someone who reads it but it's all Greek to the novice. I play by ear. These songs aren't hard, so it isn't a huge set back but 2 more pages would have been nice.

This book is a disappointment.
1. There is no CD
2. The examples are all really short- like one or two bars, there are hardly any examples that really show you how to apply the stuff to different songs. In fact there is only one actual song example.
3. Most of the runs and examples are in G, which is okay since a lot of fiddle tunes are in G or A, and you can capo to still 'play in G' but that is just lame. Give us some interesting runs in other keys and things!! Some stuff you just have to play in E or A cuz of the way the open strings are.
4. He uses standard musical notation as well as tab, and in a few cases there is no tab. This is OLD TIME music!! It's learned by ear. But the author is a classically trained musicologist. He's an academic. Lame approach to soulful music of the people.
5. He lists ideas that he transcribed from old recordings but does not list what recordings!! Some are not easy to find. At the beginning he lists the Harry Smith Anthology as a great reference, which it is, but the song list at the end is NOT in the anthology and he does not list recordings, just the song and artist. That is just lazy and stupid. Shame on him!
6. There is no guide to notation- fine if you already know how to read it!! ;-)

Overall, I'm an intermediate guitarist that already plays this style some and was hoping for more. More stuff in other keys, a CD (my fault, the picture of the record on the front made me think it came with a CD), more examples of how to apply the ideas, more references for recordings etc. It says 'based on recording from the 20's and 30's'. You'd think that you'd go over at least a few different songs. Instead you get 1, count 'em one song. In sum, I went through the book in a few hours and will probably go back for a few ideas now and then but J. Weidlich pretty much did a lazy job and you should not waste your time with this one.

This book is not a SQL server Backup and Recovery book.

Most of the contents of this books are fillers. It is obvious the publisher (Osborne) demanded the author to write a 500 page book in order to justify the exorbitant cost of this book.

The real information on backup and recovery does not start until page 331!!!!! The author is a good writer and obviously had lot of IT experience. He does his best to make the book as informative as possible. But it is apparent that backup and recovery information is not worth 500 pages of text.

I think the book could have been salvaged quite well if the last chapter on case studies of backup and recovery scenario was better written, but this is where the author REALLY bombed. His recovery steps can all be summarized as recovering the full, then incremental, then transaction logs. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about SQL recovery knows THAT.

The Backup & Recovery techniques could have been put in less than one third the size of this book. But the book goes needlessly into many of the MS SQL Server 2000 features that have absolutely nothing to do with Backup/Recovery at all. For example, what does Profiler have to do with backup/recovery? Or step by step configuration of SQL Server? If you start at page 305 and stop at page 510, you have read all there is to know about backups and restores. Beyond page 510 are some interesting special purpose topics like Replication and Log shipping etc, which can come in handy for a high availability OLTP systems. However, first four chapters are unnecessary details about NT security and SQL Server 2000 Architecture. Wait for a more focused book.

I ordered 2 copies of this book and both were missing the first 17 pages! You flip the cover and bang, you're at page 18. So obviously this is not a review but more of a heads-up. I did complain to amazon twice, but I got no reply. Just be prepared to return it, in case its been misprinted.

If you are familiar with backing up Oracle databases using Veritas NetBackup or Legato Networker you probably have most of the knowledge in this book. I saw no surprises or neat little tricks. Probably good for operations managers who need a guide on backing up there enterprise database servers. You can get most of the information on this book off of the web. Save your money.