I would never append backups to a file. As the size grows, you increase the chance of bad blocks or corruption and you could invalidate mutliple backups this way.

I also...

Actually, unless there is a good reason, and I'd look for one, I'd make four jobs and check multiple databases for each.

What's the application and what's the error?

Have you traced things?

Ken,

Perhaps you'd come up with something?

Typically we see the complaints that everyone writes about loading a TB or some other large scale operation, but 80+% of the world doesn't...

the only good ways to track per database are to look at batches/sec and transactions/sec for the database. Most other counters will be for the entire instance.

I'd agree with John. Disk space is cheap and having a table that stores dates would give you quicker results than some complicated SQL to do the same thing.

I'd agree with Gail. Go with inner joins where you can and use good indexing.

Perhaps pseudo code is too confusing for this one, but there is no sys.columns.is_identity column. Hence that's not a real answer.

However I can see the confusion and I will award...

First, please post in the appropriate forum for your question. This has been moved.

Second, a nesting transaction is where you start one transaction and then start a second within it.

Begin...

Mike,

I'll try to get you an answer, but as far as I know it's a simple cookie with only a few values in it. If you have a cookie on...

I think it's built with the "do as I say, not as I do" philosophy :hehe:

I do think that SQL Server makes strides in being more automatic to use with every version, but there are still things that someone needs to decide. For example, the...

If you know the stuff, having been working with 2005, and are looking for a job or a consultant, get 2005.

If you are thinking this would be nice to...

45 minutes seems fast, but it might be possible. I took about 80-90 minutes to complete the exam.

I like Kevin's advice, but most importantly, try to talk to the DBAs or whoever is working on the systems at the new company and find out what they do....