Back up and restore is for the entire database. It addresses not only the data changes but also includes table, index et al changes. The destination database will also be...

As Grant mentioned, you can increase the log back up frequency. Can you do one at 3AM?. Do you have any batch jobs running? If so, its quite possible you...

Do you check the index fragmentation for a rebuild (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189858.aspx )?. This way you will not rebuild all the index. Your logs might be growing big if...

Is the tempdb files set to particular size or set to autogrowth?. Please clarify

Please check if there are network issues. Try running the same query directly on the server & retrieve the time

Below are some of the options for parameter sniffing:

1. Local variables

2. WITH RECOMPILE

3. Rebuild index - it creates new plan

4. Trace Flag 4136 with QUERYTRACEON HINT

more options can be found...

It depends on - is it a stanalone/cluster/mirror et al the infrastructure involved. Please provide more details

You are doing an upgrade on SQL Server Version as well Standalone/Cluster changes. I would assume there will be changes to the storage as well. It will be difficult to...

Looks like yours is a very controlled, monitored and process oriented system. This kind of functioning happens, when the DBA , SAN/Infrastructure et al is represented by different vendors or...

If you have reasoned out the issue to be Memory, does the simple query do lot of in memory sort operations. May be creating an ordered/grouped by covered index can...

To view errors/warnings et al for Cluster failure , you need to view thru 'Cluster Failover Manager'. More information available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772342.aspx

Back up policy on database is set up based on the business requirements as well. Looks like this particular database has a policy of its own against the standard back...

You can maintain the primary(OLTP Server) on SQL Server 2008 and upgrade the Secondary(DW) server to SQL Server 2014, the log shipping should work. More information at

Try setting the job to 'run as' your id.

SQL Server Agent is a dependent service on SQL Server Service. Try getting into 'Service Manager' and change it to automatic.