Any DBA who has been bitten by these subtle data integrity issues, or reports that erratically produce the wrong results, will know how much careful testing is involved in mitigating them.   Read more...

It is ingrained in many developers and DBAs to keep transactions in SQL Server "as short as possible". Why does this mindset exist? Does it imply a deep-seated lack of confidence in the scalability of SQL Server's locking and concurrency models?  Read more...