Yes, you can create a linked server from 2005 to 2008.

There are many example scripts in Books Online for using sp_addlinkedserver

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190479.aspx

It will still cause index fragmentation as the pages are moved between files. It seems like an extra step to me. I would just shrink the current file leaving enough...

Pause SQL server before restarting it. This will block new sessions but will allow the current ones to finish.

I agree that I should have included a disclaimer about using this method. However, my intent was to share my experience and a unique solution to a corruption issue. The...

Well, now that you mention it, in one of my more recent posts, I said that considering information in someone else's post, we potentially might have to run the old...

SSMS 2008 will work fine to manage the data engine of a SQL 2005 install. However, if you are using Reporting Services you have to connect using http://<servername>/reportserver and you...

Our VMware database sits on a physical cluster but I don't see a reason why it couldn't be a VM. Just make sure the Infrastructure guys have sufficient redundancy built...

Yes

According to the Release Services blog SP2 for SQL 2008 will be in Q3 of 2010 and SP4 for SQL 2005 will be in Q4 of 2010.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2010/02/12/sql-server-servicing-plans.aspx

According to BOL the distributor will need to be on the 2008 server.

A Distributor can be any version as long as it is greater than or equal to the Publisher...

SQL Server Agent Proxies may be what you are looking for.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189064.aspx

You could also use SQLCMD. Just create an operating system job step like this on serverA:

SQLCMD.exe -E -S serverB -Q "BACKUP DATABSE <databasename> TO DISK = 'c:\databasename.bak'"

Why not both?

It sounds like you are already log shipping to a secondary site. You could use clustering at your primary site and mirror to a stand alone server at...

Sounds like you found the issue. Without knowing your system I would recommend limiting max memory for SQL to something around 3GB so it doesn't consume all the available memory...

Just uncheck the Reporting Services check box on the...