Uniqueness isn't something you need for the clustered index. The choice of clustering key is usually something that is increasing and not often changing, like an id or date field...

You can, however, move the FQDN to a new IP. This doesn't necessarily mean a linkage to the SPN. I can have a CNAME or ALIAS for  connectivity and a...

I'm confused. You say 1 instance of SQL 2012, but mention VMs. Are there separate VMs for other things or is this related?

I agree with the above, but I also...

You can read about them here: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/steps/stairway-to-t-sql-beyond-the-basics-level-2-writing-subqueries

I don't think there is any setting for this. AFAIK, if you add column in the middle of the designer, this causes a table rebuild. If you add at the...

You can set up a load balancer to handle the networking part. SQL Server doesn't handle IP redirection. If the application is using IP to connect, that's a fundamental problem....

Everybody can shift work around if a system is down, and they have. However, there's a cost. The reason we try to build systems that can run with hot patches...

Those are good tools, but are you asking about tools to see the plan, or how to understand it quickly?

Ah, you're right, Drew. I was thinking this was a code replacement that would leave the WHERE, but that would work. However, it's also a PR to upstream modules, not...

I would urge you to product a real result set, which can be with inserts into another table. This will help you be sure you've correctly identified things and make...

Be good to see what you mean by grouping. Show some results. FWIW, this is why testing is a good way to get set up for queries: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/using-tsqlt-tests-to-practice-queries

That's the view of someone that sees these systems serving a few humans. These days systems serve other systems, humans around the world, and they can be live 24x7 for...

I've run into people that were sure you couldn't index unless this was persisted.

Fair point, and I'll reword.

This does change some parameterization stuff, but I think it prevents simple mode, which I'm not sure would be used here. Not sure, and haven't dug into this as other...