A lot of administrator tasks are executed in a regular manner and it's inconceivable to run these tasks manually. SQL Server offers a dedicated service called SQL Server Agent helping us automate many common tasks. Along with this service, a very helpful tool called maintenance plan was developed to support regular tasks that should be run against each database.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Using SQL Server Agent: We need to know what SQL Server Agent is and how to set up this service from reliability and security perspectives; we also want to be informed when things are going wrong, which means the need of database mail setup as well
- Maintenance plans: This powerful tool helps administrators when they are considering which tasks are needed to maintain healthy databases protected against...