1. The Ultimate Maintenance Plan By Ed Roepe Perimeter DBA, LLC

2. About Me Over 25 years experience in databases
I have been working with SQL Server since version 4.21
Worked as FTE and consultant on some of the largest SQL database installations in US
Experience in many different industries
Experience in very large databases, high transaction systems, and high availability
Microsoft Certified
Started consulting firm in 2014 in the Atlanta area

3. Agenda Discuss the Microsoft Built-in Maintenance Plans
Discuss the Ola Hallengren Maintenance Solution
Discuss other items that should be part of a maintenance plan
Discuss some typical maintenance plans

4. Goals of a maintenance solution
Lights out
Reliable
Flexible
Proactive alerting
Robust

5. Microsoft Maintenance Solution
Integrity Check
Index Maintenance
Update Statistics
Database Backups

6. Starting the Microsoft Maintenance Plan

7. Microsoft Solution – Pros & Cons
Simple to setup. Just run the wizard
Designed for basic servers
Provided by Microsoft
Cons
Sometimes with older versions you have to have the same version of SSMS as SQL to create/modify
Index maintenance does all indexes
Statistics maintenance does all statistics

8. Ola Hallengren Maintenance Solution
Written by Ola Hallengren
DBA in Saxo Bank, a Danish investment bank
Microsoft MVP – SQL Server
Consists of
SQL Server Backups
SQL Server Integrity Check
SQL Server Index and Statistics Maintenance
Log of each step of maintenance

9. Installing the solution
Download the scripts
Create database to contain stored procedures and log table (suggest DBAUtility)
Install the stored procedures
Create the scheduled jobs
Modify the scheduled jobs as needed
Add additional maintenance functions

10. How it works
Stored Procedure is called for each function (index, backup, stats, etc.)
Start of each function/step is logged into table
End of each function/step is logged into table
Return code and any errors are returned to calling program

11. Backups – Common Options
Specify databases to include or include
Full Backup
Differential Backup
Log Backup
Verify backup
Number of hours to cleanup old backups

12. Backups – Advanced Options
Compression
Call to 3rd party backup programs (Quest Litespeed, Idera SQL Safe, etc.)
Perform a full backup if log is taken and no full backup exists
Copy Only – For snapshots. Take backup without disrupting last full backup
Backup to multiple files at the same time
Perform Verify and Checksum
Specify cleanup BEFORE or AFTER backup

13. Full Backups - Example
EXEC = = = = = = = = = = = 'Y'

14. Log Backups - Example
EXEC = = = = = = = = = = = 'Y'

15. Index & Statistics – Basic Options
Databases to include or exclude
Tables to include or exclude
Define three fragmentation groups (2 thresholds)
Low = Zero to first threshold
Medium = First threshold to second threshold
High = Second threshold to infinity
Define actions for each group (example)
Low = No action
Medium = Index reorganize
High = Index Rebuild:

16. Index & Statistics – Advanced Options
Specify the order for performing indexing (Online, reorganize, rebuild, etc.)
Program will automatically select available options based on version and edition
Specify MAXDOP or SORT_IN_TEMPDB
Specify FILLFACTOR and PADINDEX
Specify UpdateStatistics or OnlyModifiedStatistics
Specify the time limit (to prevent running into production)

17. Index & Statistics - Example
EXEC = = = = = = = = = = = = 'Y'

18. Integrity Check – Basic Options
Specify database to include or exclude
Specify PHYSICAL_ONLY or NOINDEX

19. Integrity Check - Example
EXEC = = 'Y'

20. Ola Hallengren – Pros & Cons
Pros powerful. A simple command can do 1000s of ps
Very powerful. A simple command can do 1000s of steps
Program automatically deals with version and edition so you can roll out the same plan to multiple different servers
The index & statistics program is very sophisticated and will only do what is needed
Cons
Some learning curve on learning the commands and syntax
The supplied maintenance jobs use CMD mode. Using the T-SQL mode is much simpler

21. Tricks to Rolling out maintenance jobs
Use CMS or Registered servers to deploy to multiple servers
Create first set of jobs, script the jobs, and then deploy to other servers.
Will need to remove the ID of the schedule
Write script to dynamically calculate the location of the SQL log subdirectory
Prefix all maintenance jobs with a unique identifier. I use “DBA –”
Setup Database Mail, operator and alerts on all jobs

22. Other Maintenance Items
Recycle the SQL Log daily (retention 15 to 30 days)
Cleanup the job history table in MSDB (retention 30 days)
Cleanup the backup history table in MSDB (retention 30 days)
Cleanup to history table in MSDB (retention 30 days)
Cleanup the TXT files in the SQL Log directory (retention 30 days)
Cleanup the Ola log table (retention 7 to 30 days)
Cleanup the Syspolicy table
Setup alerts

23. Alerts – Part 1
Error Hardware or System Problems Error Logical Page Consistency I/O Error Error Read Operation I/O Error Error Page Corruption In Memory Error Filegroup Full Error Deadlock Detected Error Database Log Not Available Error Transaction Log Full Error Invalid LSN in Transaction Log Error Error With Transaction Log Error Index Corruption

24. Alerts – Part 2
Severity 16 - Miscellaneous User Error Severity 17 - Insufficient Resources Severity 18 - Nonfatal Internal Error Severity 19 - Fatal Error in Resource Severity 20 - Fatal Error in Current Process Severity 21 - Fatal Error in Database Processes Severity 22 - Table Integrity Suspect Severity 23 - Database Integrity Suspect Severity 24 - Hardware Error Severity 25 - Unexpected Fatal Error

25. Suggested Maintenance Plans
Task
Small
Medium
Large
Integrity Check
Daily
Daily or Weekly
Weekly
Update indexes
Update statistics
Daily or Hourly
Full Backups
Differential Backups
None
Log Backups
Hour
15 min or hour
15 min or less
Cleanup tasks

26. Summary Tour of Microsoft maintenance solution
Tour of Ola Hallengren maintenance solution
Tour of other maintenance items
Tour of alerts
Suggested maintenance plans

27. My Information
Ed Roepe
President /Owner
Perimeter DBA,LLC
Cell: (678)