Summary

SQL Server Agent brings many opportunities for you to make your life easier. Just creating a few simple backup jobs that notify operators will automate many normal tasks. If you wish to get fancy, go ahead, but do some planning first, especially when considering multiserver jobs.

The pager notifications and the related on-duty schedules can be used for regular e-mail or pagers. This is a good way to make sure the correct people are getting notified. If you are going to have many operators for alert notifications, consider creating e-mail groups, and off-load some of the notification work to your e-mail server.

Start small, and take your time. As you get more comfortable with SQL Agent, you can spread your wings and fly.