SQL Server 2017 mainstream support ends in five months (extended support to October 2027). Why are you going to 2017 instead of 2019?

Create a new server.  Backup, restore, update statistics,...

How fresh does the data need to be? If a nightly update suffices and the servers are on the same network or otherwise able to copy files, then you could...

DDL Trigger

Not exactly clear what you're trying to do yet...

Are you talking about SQL Server's built-in change tracking, or some custom-built approach?

If built-in, and you want to identify the distinct change...

Backups store state at the point of backup.

Are you trying to implement a data retention policy that removes older data?  If so, you'd need to implement processes to do that...

This could probably be done with a DDL trigger.

So obviously the local admin has at least ALTER permissions, right? A user who can set it to single user could disable...

There is an AUTO_SHRINK property, but think hard about using it. Otherwise, the transaction log is only shrunk one tells SQL Server to shrink it by using DBCC...

Sticks = pipes ("|").  Thank you, Frederico! I guess I have heard that term, but not as commonly as pipe, and didn't make the connection here.

Ahmed: Questions --

• What do...

What do you mean by "sticks" in this question? There is nothing in you question or the DDL or data to explain that.

One of the best analogies I've seen on scanning vs. seeking -- for those old enough to even know what a phone book -- is:

A seek is like when you...

I don't see how this is about hate for Windows or Microsoft. There is some legitimate criticism of practices which defaulted to or seemed to encourage practices (spaces in names)...

Given that

• You've named a specific row to exclude and not business rules;
• Those are not really duplicates;
• There is no inherent way to determine which is truly a first...

Thanks for the correction. I was looking at Reserved Keywords (Transact-SQL), but looked past the TSQL section into the ODBC section.

Note: In the first paragraph you state it has to be greater than 100, but then say it has to be greater than 300 in the next two.

It sounds like...

I suspect Jeff wants you to answer THIS (and in fact, any) question:

https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/slow-execution-when-update-chemical-id-on-table-chemicalhash-so-how-to-enhance-i#post-4034307

Jeff Moden, May 17, 2022 at 1:10 pm:

Does the ChemicalHash table ONLY contain rows where the ChemicalID...