First, this is a valid separation of duties and I've worked places where they implemented it. It does slow you down in a crisis, but if management agrees that's the...

Hey, lazy is a strength as well. It's part of the reason we have so many tools and utilities. Developers build things so they don't have to work.

So why don't...

Very interesting comments and thanks for the debate and interest. A few notes.

Winters aren't too bad down here in SE Denver. I think the Springs and especially Woodland Park in...

I would not recommend one file that you write to every night. If there is a problem with the backup file, you stand to lose two days worth of data,...

Use the COPY ONLY option for backups. This won't break the backup chain.

When you created the backup, you striped it across two files. This is a common mistake and the interface doesn't really alert you to this fact.

When you do the backup,...

With files you can create new ones without issue. With tape I think you are always appending or overwriting the entire tape, not something you want to do.

You are welcome and thanks for the kind words.

Steve

There are arguments either way. It's obfuscation at best, and will fool some automated tools. If you expose to the Internet, I'd do it.

Internally, easy for someone to port scan...

I somewhat like the solution above, but honestly this is something you'll run periodically to check on space, files, sizes, etc.

I'd schedule this to run on each server, make it...

Not sure if this is still true, but once I had edited maintenance plans in pre-SP2 servers with SSIS, I couldn't open them in the maintenance plan designed and had...

Thanks for the update and glad things are working.

As an FYI, auto close isn't recommended in production because it causes delays when accessing the database. Typically the resource savings isn't...

sp_change_users_login is a way to sync logins to users.

If you are moving databases, typically you move the logins once, then each time you restore, you might have to re-sync things.

I might agree the question is vaguely worded, but arguing that once you supply a seed you don't have to supply one the second time seems nitpicking.

Also, getting multiple records...

Exams are given at Prometric or VUE testing centers. There's no real difference between them.