The book begins with a concise overview of the new features of SQL Server that will be of interest to experienced developers.   This is especially important given the substantial changes to SQL Server with this release.  From there, the book quickly moves on to the “meat” of the title.  Beginning-level material that had appeared in the previous edition will be removed to provide more room for covering new features and more extensive code examples.

The book covers such topics as:

• Writing complex queries
• Building more complex types of data structures.
• Techniques for improving application speed and performance.
• Advanced scripting and error handling.
• Advanced methods for handling stored procedures.
• SQL cursors
• XML and XQuery support
• Reporting and Data Transformation Services
• Replication
• Security and Performance Tuning
• Advanced database design

The book's companion site will provide all of the source code, so readers can quickly implement the soluitons described in the book.