Thanks and the comparison is to stimulate debate. Think about it, we teach and learn by example, we are always comparing A to B, trying to better understand the world.

Lots...

Correct, a .bak is used in DR situations. There will be no MDF/LDF. They will be created during the restore process, at the sizes needed for the backups.

You can look...

If you need to use languages outside English, then use Unicode. If you are sure you won't, then stick with regular varchar.

There are lots of ways to do this, but most of them come down to being organized and standardized in how you approach deployments.

I wouldn't give anyone Visual Studio...

Use a production backup and obfuscate the data.

Buy a tool. Red Gate has a data generator you can use.

In this case GUIDs are a better choice. You can use identities, but pick ranges for each system, large ranges, if you do.

Don't cross post.

Answered here: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic511041-146-1.aspx

How true, how true.

The measure of a person is how well they do the work and...

Project Management is a big part of it, but it's also how we want to be perceived by other groups and people in general. I think IT has a fly-by-night,...

The download has been updated to correct a few bugs, courtesy of Mr. Bird.

I probably didn't do a good job explaining the analogy, but I think that looking at other professions might help us decide if we should change the way we do...

:), I was going to suggest what you posted. Single user mode usually helps here.

Terry,

Good advice.

OP,

You would restore the full, the diff, and logs, and with the final log, go as long as you can. You have to practice those tasks. I'm not sure...

That's a good question. I know xp_delete_file is called, with the filename and time base on tracing things.

In testing, I also saw a call like this:

exec sp_executesql N'RESTORE LABELONLY FROM...

2 instances meaning active/active or 2 instances on one node in active/passive?

Are you adding another server (3 nodes) for the instance or a third instance somewhere else?