Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services 2/E 2nd Edition

This is a very complete and well-written book. I have the first edition and the new material in the second edition made it well-worth the price. The thing I like most about the book is that there is an example project that is carried through all the chapters so by the end you have seen an entire MDS project built. There are also code examples that teach you to do each operation through the Web Services API in addition to the UI. The explanation is much easier to understand than the Microsoft documentation

What you think of this book depends on the purpose for which you are using it. I was studying for the MS Exam 70-463 and found it to be fairly complete but missing some critical details, the subjects of which were included in the practice exam questions.If you are looking for a general overview of Master Data Management, this is not it. This is a tutorial on Microsoft's tool for instituting Master Data Management. It does do a fairly good job of covering the subject of MDM, but it's context is MS's software.If you are a person who:1. is interested in learning about Microsoft MDS and what it can do.2. you have a system capable of running the example code3. you are SQL literate and comfortable with its vocabulary and syntaxthen this is a really good way of understanding what this product can do for your organization or your client's organization.If you are studying for the exam and want a tertiary text that walks you thru the entire process of establishing, maintaining, and using the product, this is a good book.No matter what, If you are in management of any but the smallest of companies, you need to understand this subject matter. There is a book that you should read first before reading this or one concerning the same subject matter. That book is 'Business Analytics for Managers: Taking Business Intelligence Beyond Reporting (Wiley & Sas Business Series) '

I prefer hard-copy for my reference material and this has been a very helpful guide. I am using SQL Server 2016, and MDS is probably the component that has evolved the most from 2012 to 2016, but there is more than enough useful information in this book to stay relevant.

I found the opening chapters quite good. However as I read further in the book, it seemed like it turned into a "click here" catalog. I found myself engaging in exercises without really understanding _why_ I was doing so. While I do think it's valuable to have exercises to expose the capabilities of the product, with a book like this, I look as much for concepts and "why" behind the product. It seemed like the author started in that direction and then backed off from the higher-level conceptual stuff somewhat in favor of a features walk-through.I have deep expertise in SQL Server and Business Intelligence tools. This is a good book, and I recommend it, but I was definitely hoping for (and expecting) more. I would give 3.5 stars if 1/2 stars were allowed.

All i can say is thanks Tyler this pulled me out of a potential nightmare!anybody interested in getting into master data services, this should be the first port of call

Great Condition

It was well organized with nice examples. My evaluation is based on the way the author presented the material. I have not bought into the topic itself.

I boughtthis book hoping the code samples would give me a start in using the MDS API. It turns out the code samples don't work and are some type of pusdo code. If you are a seasoned programmer, you can tell immediately that the code in the book will not work.Example 1:request.Metadata.Entities = New Collection<Entity>();Will result in a design time error of "cannot implicitly convert type....to 'Entity[]'"Example 2:request.Metadata.Entities.Add( new Entity ....);Entities is an array and don't have an "Add" method.I can go on and on. This is riddled through out all the code examples. I'm not sure if it was meant to be pudo code or working example.Was going to give it a 1 but instead gave it a 2 since there was an informative chapter on using Master Data Management in the enterprise.