Millions of SQL Server instances run in the offices of small and medium-sized organizations and there are many "accidental" DBAs out there whose job it is to maintain them. Often, they find that they don't have the knowledge, experience, or critically the time, to perform the correct level of maintenance on their SQL Server databases, much as they might like to. This can mean poor performance and reduced availability. Regardless of the size of your organization, if your mission critical data becomes unavailable, then business will suffer greatly.    The Maintenance Plan Wizard and Designer allow you to configure and schedule eleven core database maintenance tasks, ranging from integrity checks, to database backups, to index reorganizations and rebuilds. Brad walks through every one of these tasks covering:    The intent of each task and why it's important  How to configure each task and what all the options mean  Scheduling considerations: when and how often should you run the task?  Customizing and extended your Maintenance Plans using the Designer     Used carefully, these Maintenance Plan tools represent powerful time-saving devices for any DBA. At each stage of the book, Brad explains clearly the correct and incorrect uses for the tool, and indicates where more advanced solutions, using T-SQL or PowerShell scripting, would be more appropriate.  Table of Contents     Chapter 01: Why is Database Maintenance Important?  Chapter 02: Before you Create any Maintenance Plans  Chapter 03: Getting Started with the Maintenance Plan Wizard  Chapter 04: Task Scheduling  Chapter 05: Check database Integrity Task  Chapter 06: Shrink Database Task  Chapter 07: Rebuild Index Task  Chapter 08: Reorganize Index Task  Chapter 09: Update Statistics Task  Chapter 10: Execute SQL Server Agent Job Task  Chapter 11: History Cleanup Task  Chapter 12: Define Back Up Database (Full) Task  Chapter 13: Define Back Up Database (Differential) Task  Chapter 14: Back Up Database (Transaction Log) Task  Chapter 15: Maintenance Cleanup Task  Chapter 16: Using the Maintenance Plan Designer

Brad's Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans PDF

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