You are using NOINIT, which means you append each day's backup to the file.

Use INIT to create a new file each day.

Service Broker might help here. I suppose you could delay messages until some time.

The other thing is perhaps insert the data into a Q table of some sort with a...

The View is treated just like a table. In essence, I believe that your query is merged into the view for the execution plan. It doesn't materialize the view and...

It helps as a bonus with experience. You have to sell it to your company, or if the company is large enough, they might automatically recognize it.

Congrats!!!!!

FYI, the 2008 exams are in development now. My guess is they'll release in early 2009.

AFAIK, only Management Studio can view query plans. As Gail mentioned, they can be saved, but the data is only in the XML file (sqlplan) or shown in SSMS.

You can...

There is another release of 2008 slated soon, which should update things a bit. I work for Red Gate, and haven't compared them, but many people seem to love SQL...

If SQL server is consistently using 80%, then you don't have a big enough box. Or things aren't tuned well.

It will spike periodically. Anything less than 5 minutes I'd look...

default port uses 1433, named instances pick a port. They tend to try for the same port, but there's some algorithm that picks a port out of a range.

Use the...

Transaction logs are ALWAYS used. Even in simple mode. They are cleared often, but they are still used.

Can you better explain what you think is happening by "not generated"?

Check out the views. The writes are easy since you could always Q them (think Service Broker) and have the receiver determine where to write things. I'd also consider moving...

Are you SP2 and above?

replication does this. bidirectional transactional handles this fine.

Messaging is preferred, but if you're doing this, why not use Service Broker? Why a third party?

Having the updates occur means that you...

Disk space is an OS function. you check the server itself to find this out. SQL Server has space reserved in its files, and sp_spaceused (and numerous other scripts) can...

Is this a cumulative update, post SP2?

Clusters have their own requirements for some patches. The READ ME with the patch should address cluster issues, and if it doesn't, I'd contact...