The big loopholes are the ones you won't think of. Haveing the DBA handy is the important thing since unforseen things might happen.

Other than that, DR could be as simple...

I typically run optimizations once a week and integrity before all backups.

I'd run integrity, then optimizations.

I assume the space was already allocated on your SAN drive and SQL just picked it up? How much space was added v how much was there? Are you sure...

You can make it the last step in the package, or make a second package and use the job system to call the 2nd when the first successfully completes.

I'm not sure what you are looking to compare? If you want the current fillfactor of the table, then it will be gathered by dbcc showcontig, but this only works...

SQL Server preallocates space for the dbs and then fills it up. If you create a 10GB database, SQL Server allocates that much space from the OS filesystem, then zeros...

You haven't really provided very much detail here as to what you are looking for. If you want to limit access to data based on username, then a view might...

My buddy Andy would say use Access and link it to your tables. Setup only links to those tables the users need.

There are a few issues with using Master. 1 you are changing the base system of SQL Server, no strong recovery on this db, contains system level information, etc., so...

Maybe this?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1561029,00.asp

I'd check more on programming Windows sites instead of here. Mostly SQL Server guys here, not as many programmers.

Haven't seen this anywhere. It sounds like an issue with the Oracle driver from MS, you might need to contact them.

Hey, if you build one, send it in (articles@sqlservercentral.com). Be a good thing for our next book to help others out with.

Are you looking for a form to give to users so they can request a DB?

I don't have one handy, but we used to ask for size(data), guess at transactions...

There isn't a good way to do this. Some of the 3rd party vendors like Red Gate, have figured this out for their Compare tools, but they haven't published a...

Just install SQL on one of the servers, people can connect via IP or the NetBIOS name.