Microsoft Sql Server - Novell ZENWORKS 10 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SP3 - SYSTEM PLANNING-DEPLOYMENT-BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 10.3 30-03-2010 System Planning Manual

3.4.2 Microsoft SQL Server

The most important aspects of managing and maintaining a Database Server that is hosted on a
Microsoft SQL Server are the following:
The customer must have the skills in-house, or readily available (contractor, consultant, or
partner) to manage and maintain the Microsoft SQL Server based on the best practices that
Microsoft outlines for regular database management.
There must be regular database backup routines in place. This should also be documented in the
design document.
There must be regular database maintenance routines in place. This should also be documented
in the design document.
Considerations for clustering (high availability) of the Database Server should be made and
documented.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 has a Maintenance Plan Wizard in the SQL Server Management Studio.
This tool should be readily available to any customer that is utilizing Microsoft SQL Server in their
data centers.
Maintenance tasks that can be scheduled include the following:
Check database integrity
Shrink database
Reorganize index
Rebuild index
Update statistics
Back up database
These tasks should be thoroughly understood before performing them on a live system that is
hosting the ZENworks Configuration Management database.
Microsoft recommends the following when managing Microsoft SQL Server 2005:
Backups should be performed daily.
A Database Integrity Check should be performed every 14 days.
Reorganizing or rebuilding indexes should be done when fragmentation is excessive. If
fragmentation is greater than 30 percent, an index should be rebuilt. To determine the
fragmentation of the indexes in your database, use the dynamic memory view
'sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats'. Novell recommends that rebuilding indexes should be done
at least once per week because the clustered indexes will be fragmented over 75 percent within
a few days of insert/update activity. This scenario is a contributing factor to lag, escalating
locks, and eventual deadlocks.
A good overview of the Maintenance Plan Wizard can be found on the
www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1127).
Microsoft also offers the SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer Tool. This tool addresses a wide
variety of best practices as outlined by Microsoft. This tool can be found on the
Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DA0531E4-E94C-4991-
82FA-F0E3FBD05E63&displaylang=en).
MSSQLTips Web site (http://
Microsoft TechNet
Gathering Critical Information for Design Activities 35