I'm not sure what 2.5K will buy, depending on your class of hardware. Tearing out the MB is OK, I guess. Never done it on a server, and not sure...

We have a new saint?

Well I give up. Wide receivers that only shine when I bench them and a manager that can't always remember to move bye players to the bench.

Let me know who...

You can set the IPs in the SQL Server Configuration Manager that SQL Server listens on. In the network protocol section.

What I would do is similar to what Roy has suggested.

Use a script on the source to do an SFTP to the new location. I would have it delete old...

CAST and CONVERT http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187928%28v=SQL.100%29.aspx

What's your current server hardware? Any benchmarks on memory/CPU avg and peak?

I would always use the existing system as a base benchmark to look at

A large event can be overwhelming. So the primary advice I give is what I got from Andy W.

Play your own game.

Don't try to do what Itzik or Jeff do...

2. script this with something like Powershell - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2010/01/05/performance-counters-there-s-a-script-for-that.aspx

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/sqlandthelike/archive/2009/11/30/my-first-useful-powershell-script-capturing-performance-counters.aspx

1. I think if you solve #2, #1 is easy, or you can better control where the data goes.

These sound like interview questions. A few hints.

1. you need to know what the process name is, it's in Books Online, and then you query for the processes running in...

You don't log into management studio. It is just an application that connects to SQL Server. The password depends on which instance you are connecting to.

The version of SSMS v...

If you have restored master from backup, you should not need to rebuild it.

One trick that might work, not sure since you havent' provided much info, is to use the "Go trick".

Have smaller cross joins, or variable ones, each one that handles a...

Two things.

1. Add notes/comments in your template to make sure you do xxx.

2. In your job, run this off of a table. So join with tables, use a cursor, whatever...

The backups are needed if you need to recover to a point in time between the full backups. If you do a full backup at midnight each day, and your...