I'd add a field to the staging table that allows me to batch things. So if I loaded 10 records, I'd mark those 10 as "in process", and if there...

You can use Get-Credential to enter new credentials.

Thom has some good thoughts. I'd also add what is your skillset? Or that of your team?

If you have mostly Linux or Windows experience, it's a con to...

There are items inside SQL Server that use the CLR objects, so the .NET framework is required.

run dbcc to check this table, and really, you ought to run a dbcc checkdb across the entire database.

Well, no real problem, but often the patching process will require the service to stop and restart. A host OS reboot might occur. Actually, I'm not sure if any CU...

I think you're right, in that you need SA and you get one failover. You'd be OK with the licensing here. We have BAGs here, but we assume that failover...

Are you trying to somehow track a missing index to a query?

You capture warnings: https://sqlperformance.com/2015/10/extended-events/capture-plan-warnings

I'd lean towards using some table that tracks test data and then using that in reports (or views) to ensure the test data isn't included in the reporting system.

So we do split out by version, but there's no control over posting there. I know if I look for issues with VS2017, I'll sometimes see posts in the same...