It is the latest SP. However it includes SP2 + 10 CU. There are CU11 and 12 which are not part of SP3. Keep in mind though, you should be...

You can use xp_readerrorlog to periodically scan the error logs for the events you are interested in. This can be done by reading the content in to a temporary, staging...

Are you sure you have the right permissions on the SQL instance(s)?

Do you have any packages using legacy components? upgraded from SQL 2000 using the wizard and never re-written?

I agree, though would again recommend discrete usuage.

I recently purged ~ 26GB staging data from 31 GB database and didn't want to leave 26GB of free space in the database...

Why do you think that upgrade advisor doesn't do a good job?

What if the following steps are performed

1. Shrink database to required size (include enough room to rebuild all indexes)

2. Rebuild all indexes

3. Backup database

4. Drop the database

5. Create new database...

Nice question!!!

You can mask the sensitive data in the non-production environment and that should make everyone happy (IS and Users)

I would agree with some of the other feedback about including security considerations not just at a database level but also at the file system level. Otherwise, I can't think...

Why would you need to disable domain authentication? Even though SQL authentication in 2005+ is encrypted, it is still a recommended practice to continue to use Windows Authentication.

I had to add the user from the new domain to the local users group on the server in the old domain.

Index rebuilds usually require ~1.5x of spare disk space of the largest index. This doesn't include the space used by the original index. Of course this would be more if...

Why do you need to rollback the upgrade?

Here are the steps that I followed successfully :smooooth: :Whistling:

- From add remove programs (active node) change the SQL 2005 install and add the newly created node to the list...