Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter VIII.2. Performing Major Administrative Tasks

A database administrator's work is never done: Just when you think you're caught up, a completely new series of demands arises. Fortunately, if you've chosen SQL Server 2008 as your database platform, many shortcuts, wizards, and tools are at your disposal. In this chapter, we look at each major administrative task, along with ways to simplify, automate, and otherwise make your life easier.

We start by seeing how to take databases off-line and bring them back online, as well as view the database logs generated by SQL Server 2008. After that, you discover how to conserve valuable disk space by shrinking databases. Next, we discuss moving databases between servers — an important topic, which includes import and export considerations. Because safeguarding your information is vital, we then provide a detailed discussion of backing up, and then restoring, databases. Finally, SQL Server offers an extremely potent and flexible set of capabilities known as maintenance plans. We close the chapter with a brief example of how you can make the most of this labor-saving technology.

The SQL Server Management Studio is a powerful tool provided by Microsoft to help you manage your SQL Server 2008 instances. Additionally, you can perform some of these tasks by using the character-based SQLCMD utility. However, that's a much more cumbersome way to administer your database, so we focus on the friendlier, graphically based SQL Server Management ...