My vote is for Redgate Data Masker. It's an amazing tool. Also, great integration with SQL Clone. Together, they make a provisioning tool for non-production environments.

This question got asked in two places (btw, please don't do that). I answered on the other one with this:

Here is one article and here is another. Between...

With nothing to go on but the description you've provided, I have no idea. It could be so many different things that it's hard to say. Differences in the ANSI...

So, I work for Redgate. Bias may play a factor here.

Static data masking may be OK in production environments where you have a degree of control. However, it won't work...

My experience with, and knowledge, filestream is somewhat limited, so I'm hesitant to pronounce too strongly on this approach. I do know that files within databases leads to all sorts...

Yep. It'll do exactly what you're asking. All seven instances in one view.

1. Some people do this. Filegroups in general are a very good idea. They allow for all sorts of management like piecemeal restores that would be much more difficult without...

Most of the major tools have mechanisms for monitoring replication in one way or another. Redgate Software's SQL Monitor (I work for Redgate by the way) uses custom metrics...

Here is one article and here is another. Between the two, we outline a bunch of ways to solve the versioned data approach. The core of it is,...

The issue is that internal developers can seem to get the script to work and there investigations point to the OPENROWSET Function part of the script as after...

Ha! You're placing way more confidence in my answer than I do.

It's possible to write directly to Azure, yes. However, it all depends on how you do it. SSIS is one mechanism. You can also use Powershell or sqlcmd.exe. Make...

Looks like an issue with how the application is configured and/or coded. Go to Bingle and look up "sql server connection pool" and ensure that your app is doing this.

Second, and enthusiastic, vote for sp_whoisactive.

And yes, there are Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) that are specific for locking and blocking. Microsoft has an article on how you can query...

I don't have an answer, only some questions.

Have you looked at the wait statistics? Specifically for the queries involved? What are they waiting on (yeah, obviously the buffer latch, but...