I'd start with server properties in SSMS and have a good old read here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181453.aspx

Sadly dont have a specific answer but would it be worth trialing the different monitors out there to see how they fit? We dont rely on one tool in...

NULL is basically unknown, so for example, 1 cant be not equal to NULL as we dont know what NULL is, for that same reason and perhaps more to the...

I think the last couple of paragraphs sum it up perfectly!

'Although this gives you a lot more flexibility in controlling your database maintenance it would have been nice if they...

No I havent ran the plan yet, I normally do them via a script (or manually in some cases!) checking page_count and fragmentation from DMV's.

Just wanted to know...

WHERE firstname IS NOT NULL?

There is a setting, which I cannot remember, where you have to specify the job to fail when the package does. Apologies I just cant think off the top...

Used to use sys.dm_os_wait_stats a lot before we got Idera - the reality is though that I use so many of them!!! Index usage stats and physical stats for...

Is there error-handling inside the package trapping a potential error?

Rather than looking to validate first, can you not use TRY...CATCH and then use ERROR_MESSAGE, ERROR_NUMBER for example?

Quite often you will see things like NOLOCK to improve performance however the massive disadvantage of using it is that queries could well see inconsistent (lets say incorrect) data. ...

ALTER DATABASE [dbname] SET ONLINE

Thanks that was the part i was missing that by evicted a node in Windows, you didnt have to do anything in SQL.

Never had the pleasure thus far so wanted...

I am a big fan of it but I am beginning to think that SSIS is possibly the root of all evil...

Apologies, I didnt see the 'source database' - had another thought:

Would it be possible to use a script task to populate a variable (or variables) which is then used as...