It's actually trivial to read the discussion. I usually do it first thing to check the question before I check on the way it looks to a new user.

On the...

I'll put up an announcement soon. Need to finalize the contract with PASS and I'll post a...

I've had that "what do you get out of working here" question before and my answer has been similar. As a DBA (production or dev), the job is the same...

If you want to spot check things, you can also use Profiler to see interactively what the trace is capturing.

For gross measurements of changes v queries, you can also...

The question has had the version added.

Hmm, I have a number of friends in non-gov't business who get today as a holiday. Surprised that it isn't the case for most of you in the US.

I reread the editorial and I don't see where this is an either or issue. Getting a Service Pack doesn't have, and shouldn't have an impact on CUs.

To be clear,...

Chris,

At no time have I advocated removing CUs for SPs. In fact, I have praised MS, and prior to SS2K5, pushed for regular scheduled updates. CUs will continue to exist...

George, not likely they'll do it sooner with R2 coming out.

You can just delay the application and plan on it for Q4 if time is tight. I do think SP3...

Chris,

The problem with CUs is that most people don't have time to test. They won't waste time testing them, even for small issues. These updates are not tested as well...

A best practice does not mean that's what you always do. But in the absence of a reason to do something differently, you follow the best practice. That only makes...

You definitely need to run a trace to check. Be sure the same parameters and settings are being used.

What is the report consisting of? Are there rendering intensive things taking...

I would also dig into your hardware and make sure you do not have an underlying problem there after you follow Gail's advice.

I tend to agree with Ellis' advice above. Tempdb changes might help you, but you need to pinpoint where you are having issues with your performance. That means examining queries,...

This looks like a test question. Have you not done this and observed what would happen? If this is one of your servers, set up a test database, do this,...