FTP will be a similar can of worms with a few fun new problems as you then have to have credentials stored in plain text.  Either that or have no...

I personally disagree with your professor.  While having space for longer things is not a horrible idea, there is no benefit to having it larger than it needs to be....

My version will not work with multiple customers.  If you want to use multiple customers, the CTE method mentioned by 

April 4, 2017 at 3:35 pm

#1936658

Or another thought:

SELECT TOP 1 id, cust_id, ISNULL(CompDate, '1900-01-01') AS MaxDate 
FROM Table1
WHERE cust_id = <SOME_GUID>
ORDER BY CompDate DESC

You don't need to do...

I'd do a constraint on the 3 columns for sure since you are saying they need to be unique.  But when you say they need to be unique, do you...

I would venture a guess that statistics were updated so the delete was easier or that the values you were deleting were indexed better the second time.  But there could...

I know I got my MTA in Database Fundamentals and the test was quite easy after working with SQL for a few years.  Spent a lot more time proving my...

Another thing to watch for is SSRS doesn't like changes in server names.  If you are running enterprise edition, it should work fine I think, but if it is standard...

If I am not mistaken, the SSAS Database is just another database.  The stuff it does on the back end is the interesting side.
But if you just need to...

Are others experiencing similar issues?
Is your version of SSMS compatible with your version of Apex?
Is your SSMS version the same as the SQL Server version you are connecting...

I've also seen this issue when I leave SSMS open for weeks at a time or when my system gets low on resources.  You say you have 8GB of RAM...