Well, first of all, I'd say that while an identity column does uniquely identify a row, you still should have the business key as a unique constraint on the table....

Read the execution plan to understand how the query optimizer chose to interpret your query.

Then it won't do anything any differently than any other...

So this has nothing to do with the query. It's the settings within SSRS that will allow you to have multiple columns.

Unfortunately, I don't know SSRS well enough to...

How do you mean paging? Data is stored on pages. Do you mean page splits? Timestamp isn't going to lead to page splits unless you've indexed it and then it...

For the general stages, go and look at the error log of a server right after startup. It'll show you a number of processes as each completes so that you...

Yes, have one.

But seriously:

Start with backups. Identify the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). That's the amount of data that the business is willing to lose. They'll say zero, but that's an...

If you know for certain that you're using no other mechanisms that need the SQL Writer service, it can be disabled. That's from the Books Online.

So, not so much a bench marking tool as a load generation tool. HammerDB is one of the preferred approaches. But, if you want to simulate load, you could get...

Yes, they would be. It'd be a bad choice to do this after setting up a cluster. I'd suggest going the method of scripting everything for your initial deployment.

Yes, the role changes. When you fail over from one database to another within your availability group, the active node switches. If you're scheduling activities on the databases, you'll want...

And, as the article says, it's going to be a rare case. Don't panic. Read the KB. Apply the fix. It's probably not a bad idea to get ahold of...

Yeah, sorry, should have commented on that. The messages sound perfectly correct.

Could be a trigger? Nothing else is immediately coming to mind.

But if you're looking for backup, I'd strongly suggest using the built in backup mechanisms. Full backup, differential backup and log backups combined can ensure very little or even zero...