Assuming the PK is also a clustered index, using a GUID will lead to a lot of page splits.  It will also take 16 bytes in any indexes that reference...

I think it's handy to understand if you have the time and inclination, but for the most part you don't need to know it in detail - just knowing that...

Assuming both DBs are identical in terms of objects (especially indexes) and similar in terms of data, you may want to run the comparison again ... assuming it still shows...

In my limited understanding : statistics are used by the optimiser to determine the most efficient query plan, including which indexes to use and how.  Using an index to identify...

You said in your initial post that the dev execution plan was more efficient than the production plan - how so exactly? 

A view is an interesting solution that I haven't seen before.  I suspect it probably has as much (if not more) overhead than passing XML, plus an additional effort in...

ISNULL will work just as well, but it is specific to SQL.

Try:

strSql11=" insert into TempItem (intId,intWebId, intDataType, intNavid ) values (" & intId & ",  " & intWebId & ", " & intDataType & ", COALESCE(" & intNavId & ",0) )...

Maybe this should be approached by determining the minimum knowledge necessary to be a mid-level DBA; someone that doesn't have that knowledge would be a junior DBA.  I would certainly expect...

If you don't mind the id having owner permissions on that database, I don't think it makes any difference.

A primary key is a unique index (hence it is a constraint). 

A clustered index is one that determines the way that the data is sorted (and in fact stored)...

The other processes are using the same connection? Or are you talking about global temporary tables?

Re. max row size, standard varchar and nvarchar can exceed the row limits in 2005

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186981.aspx

Very handy for me as I'm converting some columns from varchar(4000) to nvarchar.