With the indexes rebuilt we now see almost no performance difference between the two datatypes. 

• Overhauled memory management for vacuuming, resulting in significantly lower memory usage and running time. More on this here.
• Incremental backup support.
• Faster B-tree index scans.
• MERGE enhancements, including view support.
• New functions to extract elements from UUIDs.
• WAL improvements – up to 2x write throughput on some workloads.
• Improvements to SQL/JSON support, including JSON_TABLE.
• Bulk loading improvements and perf improvements for COPY which gains the ON_ERROR ignore option to ignore errors.
• Identity columns on partitioned tables.

High CPU usage is a very common problem in SQL Servers. Any query with a bad query plan can steal CPU time and harm system response time. 

HTTP Logging is a middleware that logs information about HTTP requests and HTTP responses. HTTP logging provides logs of

HTTP request information
Common properties
Headers
Body
HTTP response information

HTTP Logging is valuable in several scenarios to

Record information about incoming requests and responses
Filter which parts of the request and response are logged
Filtering which headers to log

public class TravelAgent
{
    public TravelAgent()
    {
        this.Bookings = new HashSet<Booking>();
    }

    public int AgentId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Booking> Bookings { get; set; }
}

public class Booking
{
    public int BookingId { get; set; }
    public int AgentId { get; set; }
    public string Customer { get; set; }
    public DateTime BookingDate { get; set; }
    public bool Paid { get; set; }
    public virtual TravelAgent TravelAgent { get; set; }
}

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="Recipe3ConnectionString"
    connectionString="Data Source=.;
    Initial Catalog=EFRecipes;
    Integrated Security=True;
    MultipleActiveResultSets=True"
    providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

protected void Application_Start()
{
    // Disable Entity Framework Model Compatibilty
    Database.SetInitializer<Recipe1Context>(null);

    // The bidirectional navigation properties between related entities
    // create a self-referencing loop that breaks Web API's effort to
    // serialize the objects as JSON. By default, Json.NET is configured
    // to error when a reference loop is detected. To resolve problem,
    // simply configure JSON serializer to ignore self-referencing loops.
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter
        .SerializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling =
        Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
    ...
}

public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
    config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
      name: "ActionMethodSave",
      routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
      defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional });
}

internal class Program
{
    private HttpClient _client;
    private TravelAgent _agent1, _agent2;
    private Booking _booking1, _booking2, _booking3;
    private HttpResponseMessage _response;

    private static void Main()
    {
        Task t = Run();
        t.Wait();
        Console.WriteLine("\nPress <enter> to continue...");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static async Task Run()
    {
        var program = new Program();
        program.ServiceSetup();
        // do not proceed until clean-up is completed
        await program.CleanupAsync();
        program.CreateFirstAgent();
        // do not proceed until agent is created
        await program.AddAgentAsync();
        program.CreateSecondAgent();
        // do not proceed until agent is created
        await program.AddSecondAgentAsync();
        program.ModifyAgent();
        // do not proceed until agent is updated
        await program.UpdateAgentAsync();
        // do not proceed until agents are fetched
        await program.FetchAgentsAsync();
    }

    private void ServiceSetup()
    {
        // set up infrastructure for Web API call
        _client = new HttpClient {BaseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:6687/")};
        // add Accept Header to request Web API content negotiation to return resource in JSON format
        _client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
    }

    private async Task CleanupAsync()
    {
        // call cleanup method in service
        _response = await _client.DeleteAsync("api/travelagent/cleanup/");
    }

    private void CreateFirstAgent()
    {
        // create new Travel Agent and booking
        _agent1 = new TravelAgent {Name = "John Tate"};
        _booking1 = new Booking
        {
            Customer = "Karen Stevens",
            Paid = false,
            BookingDate = DateTime.Parse("2/2/2010")
        };

        _booking2 = new Booking
        {
            Customer = "Dolly Parton",
            Paid = true,
            BookingDate = DateTime.Parse("3/10/2010")
        };
  
        _agent1.Bookings.Add(_booking1);
        _agent1.Bookings.Add(_booking2);
    }

    private async Task AddAgentAsync()
    {
        // call generic update method in Web API service to add agent and bookings
        _response = await _client.PostAsync("api/travelagent/update/",
            _agent1, new JsonMediaTypeFormatter());

        if (_response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            // capture newly created travel agent from service, which will include
            // database-generated Ids for each entity
            _agent1 = await _response.Content.ReadAsAsync<TravelAgent>();
            _booking1 = _agent1.Bookings.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Customer == "Karen Stevens");
            _booking2 = _agent1.Bookings.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Customer == "Dolly Parton");

            Console.WriteLine("Successfully created Travel Agent {0} and {1} Booking(s)",
            _agent1.Name, _agent1.Bookings.Count);
        }
        else
            Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1})", (int) _response.StatusCode, _response.ReasonPhrase);
    }

    private void CreateSecondAgent()
    {
        // add new agent and booking
        _agent2 = new TravelAgent {Name = "Perry Como"};
        _booking3 = new Booking {
            Customer = "Loretta Lynn",
            Paid = true,
            BookingDate = DateTime.Parse("3/15/2010")};
        _agent2.Bookings.Add(_booking3);
    }

    private async Task AddSecondAgentAsync()
    {
        // call generic update method in Web API service to add agent and booking
        _response = await _client.PostAsync("api/travelagent/update/", _agent2, new JsonMediaTypeFormatter());

        if (_response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            // capture newly created travel agent from service
            _agent2 = await _response.Content.ReadAsAsync<TravelAgent>();
            _booking3 = _agent2.Bookings.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Customer == "Loretta Lynn");
            Console.WriteLine("Successfully created Travel Agent {0} and {1} Booking(s)",
                _agent2.Name, _agent2.Bookings.Count);
        }
        else
            Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1})", (int) _response.StatusCode, _response.ReasonPhrase);
    }

    private void ModifyAgent()
    {
        // modify agent 2 by changing agent name and assigning booking 1 to him from agent 1
        _agent2.Name = "Perry Como, Jr.";
        _agent2.Bookings.Add(_booking1);
    }

    private async Task UpdateAgentAsync()
    {
        // call generic update method in Web API service to update agent 2
        _response = await _client.PostAsync("api/travelagent/update/", _agent2, new JsonMediaTypeFormatter());
        if (_response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            // capture newly created travel agent from service, which will include Ids
            _agent1 = _response.Content.ReadAsAsync<TravelAgent>().Result;
            Console.WriteLine("Successfully updated Travel Agent {0} and {1} Booking(s)", _agent1.Name, _agent1.Bookings.Count);
        }
        else
            Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1})", (int) _response.StatusCode, _response.ReasonPhrase);
    }

    private async Task FetchAgentsAsync()
    {
        // call Get method on service to fetch all Travel Agents and Bookings
        _response = _client.GetAsync("api/travelagent/retrieve").Result;
        if (_response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            // capture newly created travel agent from service, which will include Ids
            var agents = await _response.Content.ReadAsAsync<IEnumerable<TravelAgent>>();

            foreach (var agent in agents)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Travel Agent {0} has {1} Booking(s)", agent.Name, agent.Bookings.Count());
            }
        }
        else
            Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1})", (int) _response.StatusCode, _response.ReasonPhrase);
    }
}

....

Becoming a software architect isn't something that simply happens overnight or with a promotion. It's a role , not a rank . It's an evolutionary process where you'll gradually gain the experience and confidence that you need to undertake the role.