Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans- P11: SQL Server has a reputation as being a simple database application to install, configure, and maintain. This is a little misleading. SQL Server is a powerful relational database that can handle the needs of the largest organizations and, as such, its proper maintenance almost certainly requires the attention of an experienced DBA. | Chapter 3 Getting Started with the Maintenance Plan Wizard Scheduling Maintenance Tasks Once you ve started the Wizard and are past the splash screen assuming someone hasn t already helpfully ticked the Do not show this starting screen again box you ll arrive at the Select Plan Properties screen shown in Figure . Figure This screen is not as simple as you might think. At first glance the Select Plan Properties screen appears deceptively simple. In fact it requires making an important choice that has significant implications later on. Let s examine this screen one part at a time. The first thing we need to do is to give our Maintenance Plan a name. The default name is MaintenancePlan but I strongly advise you to change this to something more descriptive of what the plan will do and or the databases it will affect. You and other DBAs must be able to distinguish one Maintenance Plan from another. 51 Chapter 3 Getting Started with the Maintenance Plan Wizard To change the name of an existing plan. .Simply right-click on the plan in SSMS object explorer and select the Rename option. Next we can add a description of your plan. This is optional but it can be helpful to selfdocument the purpose of the plan. Now we arrive at the important choice I referred to just a moment ago. We need to choose between two options Separate schedules for each task or Single schedule for the entire plan or no schedule. Notice that the second option is selected by default. If you make the wrong decision now and later change your mind about which option you want to use you will have to delete your existing Maintenance Plan and recreate it from scratch or you could correct the problem with the Maintenance Plan Designer but it s a lot of work . To help you determine which option you should select for your Maintenance Plan I first need to explain what each option does. Single Schedule or No Schedule This is the default option and if you choose it all the tasks you create in your .
