25. Working with maintenance plans

Tibor Karaszi

Just like a car or a house, you want to maintain your databases so that they run smoothly and safely over time. You probably have actions you want to perform that are specific to your application and data, but some actions are common to most databases, like backups and defragmentation. This is why Microsoft created maintenance plans that make the implementation of standard actions easy. We specify which of these standard actions we want to perform, for which databases, and at what intervals—no T-SQL coding required. Of course, some DBAs want more control over the actions than the maintenance plans allow for, but for those who are not full-time DBAs, maintenance plans are a good solution.