Just my 2 cents but it feels like you are trying to treat the symptoms and not the problem. What is causing the network hiccups? I would work on addressing...

Because I told him to. 😉  It works just fine on MAX datatypes.  It...

yeah, that's what I'd expect... why'd you use the grater than operator on a string?

if checking for NULL is faster, why not use that combined with if the value is an empty string?

WHERE r.resolution_text IS NOT NULL and r.resolution_text != ''

Same net result without...

I think it is one of those "it depends" situations.

The cert would need a static name, but the subject alternate names (SAN's) can allow you to use the cert for...

the $ at the end of the username makes me think that is a local machine account. I'd recommend checking if the SQL services (SSIS, SQL Server, and SQL Agent......

heh, so Scott confirmed what I was assuming, but also clarified which way things would go (read from old table, not be a deadlock victim).

But, my advice when questions like...

The anonymous login is likely due to either incorrect SPN configuration or delegation being disabled. At least that is my guess as we can't see your system.

I suppose the next...

I could be mistaken, but I am 99% sure that your schema lock is going to prevent the table rename. The rename will only commit to disk after the query...

Just wanted to add to Frederico_fonseca's reply about pings - pings  are not a reliable way to see if a system is up. MOST security experts recommend having ICMP ECHO...

Another thing it could be is firewalls.

If I am reading things right - pulling data from ERP using SSMS (19) locally works fine, but SSMS (20) from the Azure VM...

The aliases must be set up client side, not server side. You can set them up server side, but it doesn't benefit the client to have it set up on...

So it shouldn't need to be set up on the server hosting the SQL instance, just anything that will connect to that SQL instance.

My next thought would be to verify...

I personally have found that the saved connections are often misleading and I've had them get blown out by updates. I prefer to set up registered servers, specifically a Central...

Possibly a dumb question but where are you configuring the SQL Aliases? The aliases need to be configured on ALL instances that are going to connect to the server. SQL...