In-place won't work from 2000 Enterprise to 2005 Standard. Backup-Restore will work. So will the SQL 2005 "Copy Database" function, or Detach-Attach.

There are some things to make sure...

The overflow is caused by "Convert(DECIMAL(3,2)...". The numbers after "decimal" tell it how many digits to allow. The first one is total digits, the second one is digits...

If the "mother proc" creates a temp table, and calls the "child procs" to populate it, that works quite well.

There are options when you install SQL Server for installing server components and/or client components. The assumption with Enterprise and Standard is that you will install those on different...

I would consider a question about the Resource database valid in an interview (or QotD). In the interview environment, if asked "What are the system databases in SQL 2005?",...

The error proc's contents really depends on what you need for your particular application and shop.

The first thing to do is capture the error data. I use variables for...

My first question is: What do you mean by "better"? Faster? More standard? Easier to read? Gets the right results (assuming current version doesn't)?

As already pointed...

Ident_Current() will get you the most recent identity value for a table. That would be better than select the max(ID).

On the other hand, is it possible to either use...

Active/Active clustering can improve performance, Active/Passive won't.

Active/Active is more expensive (requires extra SQL Server licenses).

I can't tell you how much better it will perform, since that's very dependent on the...

Login timeout errors are usually (a) the server isn't running, (b) the network/connection is too slow.

Without the code of the query, and probably the underlying tables, the best bet I can give you is, instead of using Top 1, set something in your Where clause...

I would definitely NOT recommend either of the practices (all procs in one place, one-proc-to-rule-them-all).

I have seen an advantage to having all the procs for a specific application in one...

I don't know one I can recommend. I'd just fire up Google and start looking.

Not sure what you mean by wrapping it in a variable, but if you mean you would need to turn it into dynamic SQL, then the answer is "maybe". ...

Per MSDN, it does all that, but when it's just cleaning...