Your 2-in-1 Self-Paced Training Kit Exam Prep Guide Ace your preparation for the skills measured by Exam 70-461 and on the job. Work at your own pace through a series of lessons and reviews that fully covers each exam objective. Then, reinforce and apply what you learned through real-world case scenarios and practice exercises. This official Microsoft Study guide is designed to help make the most of your study time. Maximize your performance on the exam by learning to: Write queries and work with database entities using T-SQL Choose the right data type for your database structure Create, modify and delete tables using T-SQL Implement aggregate queries and XML schemas Modify data by using Insert, Update and Delete statements, Identify performance issues and optimize query execution. Exam Prep Guide Assess your skills with practice tests on CD. You can work through hundreds of questions using multiple testing modes to meet your specific learning needs. You get detailed explanations for right and wrong answers-including a customized learning path that describes how and where to focus you studies.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foundations of Querying

Chapter 2 Getting Started with the SELECT Statement

Chapter 3 Filtering and Sorting Data

Chapter 4 Combining Sets

Chapter 5 Grouping and Windowing

Chapter 6 Querying Full-Text Data

Chapter 7 Querying and Managing XML Data

Chapter 8 Creating Tables and Enforcing Data Integrity

Chapter 9 Designing and Creating Views, Inline Functions, and Synonyms

Chapter 10 Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Data

Chapter 11 Other Data Modification Aspects

Chapter 12 Implementing Transactions, Error Handling, and Dynamic SQL

Chapter 13 Designing and Implementing T-SQL Routines

Chapter 14 Using Tools to Analyze Query Performance

Chapter 15 Implementing Indexes and Statistics

Chapter 16 Understanding Cursors, Sets, and Temporary Tables

Chapter 17 Understanding Further Optimization Aspects

About the Authors

Itzik Ben-Gan is a mentor and cofounder of SolidQ. A Microsoft MVP for SQL Server since 1999, Ben-Gan teaches and consults internationally on T-SQL querying, programming, and query tuning. He is the author of Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL Fundamentals and coauthor of Inside Microsoft SQL Server: T-SQL Querying and Inside Microsoft SQL Server:T-SQL Programming. He has written numerous articles for SQL Server Magazine and MSDN, and speaks at industry events such as Microsoft TechEd, DevWeek, PASS, and SQL Server Connections.

Dejan Sarka is a mentor with SolidQ and focuses on development of database and business intelligence applications. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences such as TechEd, SqlDevCon, and PASS. He is the founder of the Slovenian SQL Server and .NET Users Group. As main author or coauthor, Dejan has written nine books about SQL Server. He has also developed three courses for SolidQ: Data Modeling Essentials, Data Quality and Master Data Management, and Data Mining.

Ron Talmage is a mentor with SolidQ. He is a SQL Server MVP, PASS Northwest US Regional Mentor, and current Chapter Leader of the Redmond-based Pacific Northwest SQL Server Users Group. He has been involved with SQL Server since version 4.21a, and has contributed to numerous SQL Server white papers and articles. His current focus is on database administration for relational data warehouses