Good question, I had it in my head that CROSS APPLY acted like an INNER JOIN and OUTER APPLY acted like an OUTER JOIN, but in fact the CROSS apply...

There's a feature matrix here, although you may have already seen it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(v=sql.105).aspx

Don't trust software resellers, I've bought from them more than once and had to spend literally hours arguing over...

You need encryption: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510663.aspx

Sean - SELECT state FROM state.state.state.state WHERE state = @state ORDER BY state;

Could be perfectly valid :ermm: (even if it should be a sackable offence) and reminds me a little...

Test on dev first please.

For trailing spaces only:

UPDATE [state]

SET [state] = RTRIM([state])

By the way, the name 'state' is an awful word to use for a table name, as it's reserved.

I've...

Just tested my hypothesis that string functions take significantly longer to parse, and can't see a significant difference.

10,000 rows of non-unique data with repeating patterns of ' '...

Please could you post your table definition, as I don't know what your table looks like. Thanks.

One solution for leading and trailing spaces is to use the LTRIM / RTRIM functions i.e.

SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(state)) FROM dbo.states

However I've read before that this can lead to performance issues, since...

Could be...

1) Lack of explicit SET DATEFORMAT xyz in the stored procedure.

2) Implicit convert of string 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss' in your adhoc run isn't being treated the same in the SP.

3)...

Assuming a structure, at its simplest, as:

CREATE TABLE table1 (id INT, a INT)

CREATE TABLE table2 (id INT, b INT)

INSERT INTO table1

SELECT 1,1 UNION SELECT 2,2 UNION...

1000-1200 concurrent users doing what? I'm afraid there is no way to answer this question. You need to go back to your boss and find out a LOT...

If I had the limitations of Express, then personally I would use the CDO SMTP methods of VBScript, called using CScript (Windows Scripting Host), based on the successful / failed...

Don't underestimate the exam, and having taken it myself I can recommend you brush up on ALL your core basics. Although it's the 'entry' exam to the eventual MCITP...

Surely just remove the WITH (NOLOCK) hints in your stored procedure?

Or am I missing something?

In the example given, outputTable is a permanent table.

You could use a table variable or a local/global temporary table if that would suit you, providing you know the outputs of...