The main way to speed up index rebuilds is don't do them if they are not needed. Ola Hallengren http://ola.hallengren.com/ publishes an index rebuild routine used around the world...

The SQL Server install process will always put about 3GB of files on to the System drive. Most of this is .Net routines that must be stored in the...

This probably needs to be raised as a problem with Microsoft.

SQL 2005 is out of support, so you will only get some help from them if you can show the...

Direct http access to SQL Server was deprecated a few releases ago and does not exist in SQL 2012. I would advise you look for an alternative solution that...

More like log shipping than merge replication, certainly in terms of complexity and effort.

There are other ways of tackling this issue, but they do not exist yet for SQL Server.

Back in the late 1990's a number DB2 shops stopped taking full backups of...

This link might help you work out and fix some of your issues: http://sqlserverfinebuild.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=SQL%20Server%20Memory%20Management

The risk of extended downtime grows with the age of the software.

1) The more changes you put on your VM host the greater the risk of an old...

If you are buying a new license or have your existing licenses under Service Assurance, then you are bound by the SQL 2012 licensing rules regardless of which version of...

It is now very rare for a SAN to assign a LUN from contiguous disk space. Most SANS work with some form of track vector mapping. You should...

Test your intended process using a sandbox server before doing it with real data. This will help you find anything you have missed.

My personal preferance is to build a...

Using the Cloud can significantly speed up the server provisioning cycle.

It used to take about 3 months for us to move from proposal to in-use server, but after...

http://sqlserverfinebuild.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=SQL%20Server%20Memory%20Management covers some Windows settings for memory use.

As other people have said, you also need to consider AV and Firewall settings, amongst other things. For example, on Windows 2012,...

Personally, I like to write report SQL within a Stored Procedure, and just call the SP within the report.

This allows me to test that the correct data is...

It is easy for people to look at what might make their own job easier, but if you get paid for your work you need to look at what gives...