Chapter 31 -- Automating Administrative Tasks

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Chapter 31

In Chapter 30, we looked at some of the automatic configuration options and database options provided by Microsoft SQL Server 2000 that help reduce database-tuning work for the DBA. In this chapter, you'll learn how to use some additional tools provided by SQL Server that allow you to automate other administrative tasks through the SQLServerAgent service. The SQLServerAgent service's capabilities include automatically executing certain tasks periodically on the database and notifying the DBA or another specified person that a problem or an event has occurred on the server. By taking advantage of these capabilities, a DBA does not have to manually and continually monitor the database system to determine when to perform certain tasks and therefore has more time to dedicate to more difficult database issues, such as building and tuning indexes, optimizing queries, or planning for future growth.

Three primary tools are used for automating administrative tasks: jobs, alerts, and operators. In this chapter, you'll learn about the SQLServerAgent service and how to use the service to create and use jobs, alerts, and operators. You'll also find out about the SQLServerAgent error log, which you can use to track the work performed by SQLServerAgent.