Awesome question! Thanks.

Try returning MAX(dates) from contact table, grouping by client number.

I guess it may depend on what sort of process(es) are kicked off in the batch...if they are able to be executed asynchronously, as with a stored proc execution, then...

Didn't read closely enough. You are using SQL 2000 - no EXCEPT operator. I'd use UNION. 🙂

I'd create a linked server from SQL Server to the Oracle server, then compare database tables using EXCEPT or UNION.

The "Be made using the login's current security context" option means that the linked server will use the current Windows credentials, and log into SQL Server using Windows Authentication. ...

I think it won't delete backups that were made from a different backup job, but I could be wrong. If it won't, you can create a cleanup script to...

Yes, so do you want to force all data from table B to 20 char length? What exactly do you want?

Yes. If the maintenance job is backing up directly to your "secure" directory, then it will purge .bak files older than 7 days.

What do you mean 'is it possible to fix it'? Do you want to force the data to be inserted in spite of being truncated? I think the...

I don't think you really need a 'running total' if visits are just incremented by 1. You could set up a trigger, or just use something like this for...

I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but it might point you in the right direction:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1285686/excel-use-a-cell-value-as-a-parameter-for-a-sql-query

So you want to set up xp_cmdshell to work for non-admin users? This page shows how to do it using sp_xp_cmdshell_proxy_account:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175046.aspx

If you want a running history, I'd use a SQL Job and pull data from sys.databases on a daily basis into a custom table. Then you can query that...

I assume that using the two statements together is kind of a safety mechanism; creating the FK WITH NO CHECK guarantees that the creation of the constraint will not be...