The overall layout of things as you have them looks good. There are scripts on this site that you can search out that will give you the syntax for backups...

Sorry, forgot to answer part, the alert is just telling you that you have had deadlocks. The database engine is resolving them. 🙂

The app is deadlocking due to some potentially poorly written code or due to some poor statistics. Just a guess though.

A great article to help in this troubleshooting -...

Why does that stored procedure look like a third-party monitoring tool? My guess is if you search sysobjects in all databases you will find the procedure.

Are you using a...

Hey, just to make y'all feel better, stop and consider what it must have been like for MS when they were documenting this topic. I can bet there were some...

When set to bulk-logged (or simple) the "alter index rebuild" operation is minimally logged so, you should see some savings in log growth during the operation. Your thought of switching...

...and just to add to Steve's comments, and to quote Paul Randall, your backup process is only as good as your restore process (loosely quoted), so test your backups by...

This is a pattern puzzle. First one to get the answer will be awarded $100 by sqlservercentral. Right Steve?

Can you include the statistics IO output? Also, can you attach the two query plans?

You would have to use the sys.master_files to get the final destination information. The restorefilelistonly would only be used to pull the logicalname. If they were consistent between the source...

Yes, you should be able to use restorefilelistonly as Jason recommended and collect the current information of where the files are located by querying sys.master_files.

Sounds like a fun project....

Dave - I'm sure you googled this but I found this link and wondered if this bore any resemblance to what you are seeing...

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31664499/sql2005-agent-failures-on.aspx

...because the way the function is written, and the columns contained in the function, the current indexing is not going to be sufficient and there will be some lookups. I...

Looks to be a year over year comparison, which if this is the case the physical separation of the data into multiple tables by year and using a partitioned view...

Try looking at the syscolumns table and the function object_name() to get all the information you want out. The id column in that table is what you are going to...