In his new book, Brad's Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans, Brad McGehee takes you on a comprehensive tour of two SQL Server tools designed to help DBAs ensure that a "required minimum" level of maintenance takes place on their SQL Server instances: the Maintenance Plan Wizard and the Maintenance Plan Designer. 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 Why read this book? 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.

A database administrator's duties include ensuring that a database can be restored and recovered in the event of error or disaster. This book discusses how to perform backup and restore operations using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), basic T-SQL scripts and Red Gate's SQL Backup tool. Capturing backups using SSMS or simple scripts is fine for one-off backup operations, but any backups that form part of the recovery strategy for any given database must be automated with some built-in checks that, for example, alert the responsible database administrator immediately if a problem arises. The tool of choice in this book for backup automation is Red Gate SQL Backup. Building an automated solution will take a lot of work, but this book offers some advice on possible options, such as PowerShell scripting, T-SQL scripts and SQL Server Agent jobs. --

SQL Server Hardware will provide the fundamental knowledge and resources you need to make intelligent decisions about choice, and optimal installation and configuration, of SQL Server hardware, operating system and the SQL Server RDBMS.

This book describes, diagnoses, and solves the most common problems with SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2. The authors explain a basic approach to troubleshooting and the essential tools. They explore areas in which problems arise with regularity: high disk I/O (RAID misconfiguration, inadequate I/O throughput, poor workload distribution, SAN issues, disk partition misalignment); high CPU usage (insufficient memory, poorly written queries, inadequate indexing, inappropriate configuration option settings); memory mismanagement; missing indexes; blocking (caused mainly by poorly designed databases that lack proper keys and indexing, and applications that apply needlessly restrictive transaction isolation levels); deadlocking (Bookmark Lookup, Serializable Range Scan, Cascading Constraint); full transaction logs (lack of log backups, hefty index maintenance operations, long running transaction, problems with replication and mirroring environments); and accidentally-lost data. Finally, the authors discuss diagnosing tools such as the Performance Monitor, Dynamic Management Views, and server-side tracing. --

Over 70 practical recipes for administering a high-performance SQL Server 2008 R2 system with this book and eBook.

The SQL Server Query Optimizer is perceived by many to be a magic black box, transforming SQL queries into high performance execution plans in the blink of an eye through some unknowable process. The truth is that, while the Query Optimizer is indeed the highly-complex result of decades of research, learning how it works its magic is not only possible, but immensely useful to DBAs and Developers alike. A better understanding of what the Query Optimizer does behind the scenes can help you to improve the performance of your databases and applications, and this book explains the core concepts behind how the SQL Server Query Optimizer works. With this knowledge, you'll be able to write superior queries, provide the Query Optimizer with all the information it needs to produce efficient execution plans, and troubleshoot the cases when the Query Optimizer is not giving you the best plan possible. With over 15 years of experience in the use of Relational Databases (including SQL Server since version 6.5), Benjamin has watched the SQL Server Query Optimizer grow and evolve. His insight will leave you with an excellent foundation in the practicalities of the Query Optimizer, and everything you need to know to start tuning your queries to perfection.