I'd suggest monitoring the backup process and see what the wait statistics are while the backups are running. Understanding why the backups might be waiting on anything will let you...

There is no downgrade path. It's just a question of migrating your data structures and data down to the older version. Personally, I wouldn't do it.

If you're seeing performance issues,...

1 or 3. But you should do the backups even if you do #3. The backups should just be how you protect yourself.

Nope. Access doesn't use Transact SQL and the full T-SQL stack supported by SQL Server.

There's no instant or magic way to build this kind of knowledge. It takes a long time. I'd add getting a copy of the book T-SQL Querying Fundamentals by Itzik...

Side-by-side is absolutely the best and safest. I've never really seen any major issues during upgrades, but if you had any, the ability to instantly just bring the old server...

I freely admit to my bias, but yeah, I think you can get Visual Studio to work very well. You have to plan to put the pre/post deployment scripts to...

How long does it take to rebuild your indexes. You would at least want to get a log backup at the beginning and end of that process (no, I'm not...

Might want to check the power settings on the server. That's been hitting a lot of people lately and it will certainly have some of the effects you're outlining here.

If...

Replication is one option. Replication is a bit of a bear to maintain though. You could also look to log shipping, although that has some shortcomings too.

GilaMonster (8/22/2014)

That's exactly what it's doing....

Red Gate SQL Prompt will do that.

I don't disagree with the other points, but I'm with you, if you're not using that index, it's a waste. You only get one clustered index. Rather than just arbitrarily...

It's a little outdated, but I wrote the source control chapters on this book on Team Development. It covers some of what you're looking for. Also, my company, Red Gate...

Do you have enforced referential constraints on the columns you're joining on? Does the data accurately map between the two tables, or is it possible that you're getting multiple matches...