Up until the publishing of this book there was really only one book on

SQL-DMO (Professional

SQL Server 7.0 Development Using SQL-DMO, SQL-NS & DTS) that wasn't that

good and obviously didn't cover any of the changes to DMO in SQL2K. I'm pleased

to say that this book is both good and provides some coverage of 2K objects.

It's nice to have something to recommend when readers ask for a reference on the

subject!

The book states you should know SQL Server, Enterprise Manager, how to use

Books Online, have basic programming skills using VB6, and how to code using

T-SQL. Fair requirements I think. I think one quibble I have is that a lot of

users trying DMO for the first time will truly have 'basic' skills and a bit

more coverage of objects and collections would have been a nice addition.

I was pleased to see a good chapter on backup and restore. This is where I

got started and where I think most people start with DMO. Lots of code and they

do a good job of comparing how tasks are done using EM versus doing the same

task in DMO. The chapter on managing users and roles will also be very useful to

new DMO coders. I wasn't as thrilled with the chapter on using DMO via the sp_oa~

automation procs. I'm not a big fan of those procs to start with and DMO is

fairly heavy to be running in a proc (in my opinion). The chapter on jobs is

very good. Jobs are fairly complex (think steps and multiple schedules!) and are

also a good target for a DBA trying to solve business problems.

Replication has a chapter devoted to it - you could easily devote a book to

using DMO to handle replication. In this case there is enough to get you

interested but you'll end up having to explore on your own depending on what

you're trying to accomplish. A chapter on "QALite", a clone of Query

Analyzer, shows how to create the functionality using DMO. It's useful for the

code sample, but in practice a lot of this would have been better implemented

using ADO (again, in my opinion). The final chapter on scripting is also handy,

I've used the scripting functionality a lot and you can bet you will too at some

point!

Books runs 397 pages, no CD, retail is $49.99, cheaper at Amazon of course.

It's a good book, worth buying and reading if you're wanting to learn DMO.

Experienced DMO users won't find much new material here. Gets a solid 4 stars

from me! I'm going to forward the review copy over to my friend Steve

Jones who lately has been experimenting in DMO and see what he thinks about

it.