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New book: Exam Ref 70-762 Developing SQL Databases

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We’re happy to announce the availability of Exam Ref 70-762 Developing SQL Databases (ISBN 9781509304912), by Louis Davidson and Stacia Varga.

Purchase from these online retailers: Microsoft Press Store Amazon Barnes & Noble Independent booksellers – Shop local

Below you will find an overview of this book, some key sections from the Introduction, and information about the authors. Happy reading!

Overview

Prepare for Microsoft Exam 70-762—and help demonstrate your real-world mastery of skills for building and implementing databases across organizations. Designed for database professionals who build and implement databases across organizations and who ensure high levels of data availability, Exam Ref focuses on the critical-thinking and decision-making acumen needed for success at the MCSA level.

Focus on the expertise measured by these objectives:

  • Design and implement database objects
  • Implement programmability objects
  • Manage database concurrency
  • Optimize database objects and SQL infrastructure

This Microsoft Exam Ref:

  • Organizes its coverage by exam objectives
  • Features strategic, what-if scenarios to challenge you
  • Assumes you have working knowledge of Microsoft Windows, Transact-SQL, and relational databases

Introduction

The 70-762 exam tests your knowledge about developing databases in Microsoft SQL Server 2016. To successfully pass this exam, you should know how to create various types of database objects, such as disk-based and memory-optimized tables, indexes, views, and stored procedures, to name a few. Not only must you know how and why to develop specific types of database objects, but you must understand how to manage database concurrency by correctly using transactions, assigning isolation levels, and troubleshooting locking behavior. Furthermore, you must demonstrate familiarity with techniques to optimize database performance by reviewing statistics and index usage, using tools to troubleshoot and optimize query plans, optimizing the configuration of SQL Server and server resources, and monitoring SQL Server performance metrics. You must also understand the similarities and differences between working with databases with SQL Server on-premises and Windows Azure SQL Database in the cloud.

The 70-762 exam is focused on measuring skills of database professionals, such as developers or administrators, who are responsible for designing, implementing, or optimizing relational databases by using SQL Server 2016 or SQL Database. In addition to reinforcing your existing skills, it measures what you know about new features and capabilities in SQL Server and SQL Database.

To help you prepare for this exam and reinforce the concepts that it tests, we provide many different examples that you can try for yourself. Some of these examples require only that you have installed SQL Server 2016 or have created a Windows Azure subscription. Other examples require that you download and restore a backup of the Wide World Importers sample database for SQL Server 2016 from https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/releases/tag/wide-world-importers-v1.0. The file to download from this page is WideWorldImporters-Full.bak. You can find documentation about this sample database at Wide World Importers documentation, https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/mt734199(v=sql.1).aspx.

This book covers every major topic area found on the exam, but it does not cover every exam question. Only the Microsoft exam team has access to the exam questions, and Microsoft regularly adds new questions to the exam, making it impossible to cover specific questions. You should consider this book a supplement to your relevant real-world experience and other study materials. If you encounter a topic in this book that you do not feel completely comfortable with, use the “Need more review?” links you’ll find in the text to find more information and take the time to research and study the topic. Great information is available on MSDN, TechNet, and in blogs and forums.

Organization of this book

This book is organized by the “Skills measured” list published for the exam. The “Skills measured” list is available for each exam on the Microsoft Learning website: https://aka.ms/examlist. Each chapter in this book corresponds to a major topic area in the list, and the technical tasks in each topic area determine a chapter’s organization. If an exam covers six major topic areas, for example, the book will contain six chapters.

Microsoft certifications

Microsoft certifications distinguish you by proving your command of a broad set of skills and experience with current Microsoft products and technologies. The exams and corresponding certifications are developed to validate your mastery of critical competencies as you design and develop, or implement and support, solutions with Microsoft products and technologies both on-premises and in the cloud. Certification brings a variety of benefits to the individual and to employers and organizations.

Important: How to use this book to study for the exam

Certification exams validate your on-the-job experience and product knowledge. To gauge your readiness to take an exam, use this Exam Ref to help you check your understanding of the skills tested by the exam. Determine the topics you know well and the areas in which you need more experience. To help you refresh your skills in specific areas, we have also provided “Need more review?” pointers, which direct you to more in-depth information outside the book.

The Exam Ref is not a substitute for hands-on experience. This book is not designed to teach you new skills.

We recommend that you round out your exam preparation by using a combination of available study materials and courses. Learn more about available classroom training at https://www.microsoft.com/learning. Microsoft Official Practice Tests are available for many exams at https://aka.ms/practicetests. You can also find free online courses and live events from Microsoft Virtual Academy at https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com.

This book is organized by the “Skills measured” list published for the exam. The “Skills measured” list for each exam is available on the Microsoft Learning website: https://aka.ms/examlist.

Note that this Exam Ref is based on this publicly available information and the author’s experience. To safeguard the integrity of the exam, authors do not have access to the exam questions.

About the authors

LOUIS DAVIDSON is a Microsoft MVP (Data Platform), and a Senior Data Architect for CBN. He has Over 20 years of experience with SQL Server as an architect, developer, and writer. Follow him on Twitter at @drsql.

STACIA VARGA, Microsoft MVP (Data Platform) is a consultant, educator, mentor, and author specializing in data solutions since 1999. She provides consulting and custom education services through her company, Data Inspirations, writes about her experiences with data at blog.datainspirations.com, and tweets as @_StaciaV_.