Configure and optimize SQL Server for .NET applications. Covers connection management, indexing strategies, query optimization, security hardening, and monitoring. Use when: setting up SQL Server or Azure SQL, designing schemas, optimizing query performance, configuring Always Encrypted, or troubleshooting SQL Server issues.
NVARCHAR for Unicode text, VARCHAR for ASCII-onlyDATETIMEOFFSET for timestamps — stores timezone offsetINCLUDE columns in indexes to create covering indexesEnableRetryOnFailure() for Azure SQLREAD COMMITTED SNAPSHOT isolation to reduce blocking