SQL Training : Fast Track to SQL

Fast Track to SQL is a 2-day course that provides Application Developers with the foundation critical to any dynamic Web application — database and SQL knowledge. This hands-on course provides students useable knowledge on Structured Query Language — the language of relational databases. It also extends that knowledge to database design basics, choosing the correct database for your Web application, and useful interface design on the Web.

To gain the most from this class you should have:
·	Basic understanding of programming concepts
·	Experience using Windows operating system

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

• Understand database terminology and articulate your site's database design
• Retrieve complex data sets from a database
• Insert, delete and update data in tables
• Group, order and calculate computed values on data in tables
• Use the built-in query builder to quickly "paint" complex queries
• Understand, compare and contrast connection strategies
• Describe performance-enhancing data interfaces for use on the Web

Unit 1: Introducing Fast Track to SQL

• Understanding the course prerequisites
• Using the course format
• Browsing the course outline

Unit 2: Introduction to Relational Databases

• Define the terms used in relational database design
• Understand why duplicate data is bad and hard to manage
• Define a relational database
• Contrast data architectures
• Describe the basic concepts of relational technology
• Logical vs. Physical Data Modeling
• Understand Entity/Relationship diagrams
• Describe the basics of normalization

Unit 3: Selecting Data

• Overview of SQL Viewer
• Using the basic SELECT statement
• Using a column wildcard
• Using owner and table prefixes
• Specifying textual vs numeric data types
• Filtering rows with the WHERE clause
• Using comparison operators: =, <, >, and <>
• Using Null
• Understanding Nulls and inequality
• Using compound WHERE clauses with AND and OR
• Using IN and NOT IN to shorten SQL queries
• Using LIKE for partial pattern matching

Unit 4: Creating JOIN statements

• Describe join types
• Creating recordsets from multiple tables using an inner join
• Using primary and foreign keys in performing joins
• Joining tables using ANSI-92 JOIN syntax
• Joining 3 or more tables in a single statement
• Using filters with joins

Unit 5: Changing database contents with INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE

• Adding data to tables with the INSERT statement
• Introducing the UPDATE statement
• Using a filter
• Using the DELETE statement
• Flagging records deleted as an alternative to DELETE

Unit 6: Enhancing SELECT statements

• Ordering data
• Expressions in SELECT
• Renaming tables and columns with aliases
• Selecting computed columns (expressions)
• Character strings in queries (hardcoding string output in query)
• Aggregating values
• Getting row counts
• Minimum in a column: min()
• Maximum in a column: max()
• Average of a column: avg()
• Sum a column: sum()
• Grouping data
• Grouping query results with the GROUP BY clause
• Aggregates and groups (count, min, max, avg, sum)
• Using the HAVING clause
• Using positional notation in GROUP BY

Unit 7: Connecting to a RDBMS

• Understand the Client/Server model for databases
• Basic concept of database users and permissions
• Discuss how database drivers work (queries and result sets)
• Creating an ODBC Data source
• Comparing performance (Access & MSDE)
• Query Painters

Unit 8: Introduction to Stored Procedures

• Description of stored procedures
• Benefits of stored procedures
• Incorporating procedural logic into stored procedures
• Examples of stored procedures for SQL Server and Oracle

Unit 9: Strategies for Web Database Access

• Understand limitations of the Web environment
• Discuss strategies for limiting data
• Next-n interfaces
• Limiting to n rows returned
• Performing dynamic searches
• Increasing