ehm .... tcp/ip enabled for that sql-instance ?

I second RBarryYoung's solution.

That's also how we do it if we want to have our own procedures applicable for 3th party databases.

You could use synonyms in your own db...

/*

http://blogs.solidq.com/EN/rdyess/Lists/Categories/Category.aspx?Name=Memory

I noticed that I could quite a bit of basic memory information from the system

information, so I thought I would show you a very basic query you could use...

To get your inventory of which db-users to synchronize, you can use this script:

You need to run this script in every database of the sql instance !!!

print 'print @@servername...

I forgot to reply on your logon trigger.....

Read my little article regarding exactly that:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Administration/64974/

But If you're on sp3 you shouldn't have the problems I encountered.

I also advise to read todays...

you will have to implement it on each and every individual table you want to monitor.

create trALL_yourtable on yourschema.yourtable

for insert, update, delete

as

begin

set nocount on

.....

end

I would advise to log to a...

Keep in mind, on clustered servers, it first upgrades the secondary node(s).

That may indeed take time !

Why aren't you applying SP3 +CU1 or higher ?

did you test using row_number or ranking functions ?

That in combination with a CTE or temp table may help out on this kind of stuff.

Check books online or SSC...

Also keep in mind SQLServer 2005 / 2008 will only show info for objects you are granted to !

Meaning only if you have been granted (implicit or explicit) "view object...

If you can live with near-time solutions, don't go for realtime.

A trigger is executed in transactions scope, hence if your trigger fails, your whole transaction fails !

or:

-- the old way...

On the other hand ...

As the OP states

... If a database regularly creates, say, 50 Mb a day in transactions, but once a year I create 500 Mb of...

here's a nice ref:

http://kendalvandyke.blogspot.com/2009/02/disk-performance-hands-on-series.html

- must be a large open transaction.

does dbcc opentran show info (position in the correct database) ?

Thank you for the feedback.

I still miss the most obvious question ....

Does your data contain NULL and how does that relate to the results you expect from your queries?

FYI

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Basic+Querying/understandingthedifferencebetweenisnull/871/

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Advanced+Querying/2829/

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Advanced+Querying/gotchasqlaggregatefunctionsandnull/1947/

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Miscellaneous/nullfunctionsarentthosemeetings/1313/