Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Bible

Chapter 20

Policy Based Management

In This Chapter

Exploring Policy-Based Management

Using Management Facets

Defining Policies

Evaluating Policies

With the release of SQL Server 2008, database administrators everywhere were handed an absolute gift of power in the form of the Policy-Based Management feature. Do you think that statement is a little over the top? Consider this: In the past, IT departments everywhere spent a great deal of time and money creating official data policies and procedures. After going through all that time and effort, those policies were then placed into a document somewhere and more than likely ignored or forgotten … that is until an auditor arrives and starts asking those questions everyone loves to answer.

Policy-Based Management (PBM) is a feature that enables those paper policies to finally be put into action with ease. With a few simple clicks, you can check the recovery model of all your databases. Want to see if a particular feature is enabled across your enterprise? You can create a policy for that. Would you like to enforce naming standards on new items created in your databases, such as stored procedures? You can do that! PBM is a powerful and flexible tool that should be part of every DBA's Toolbox.

So, with that introduction, what is PBM?

Traditionally, applying and enforcing server and database settings and configurations across multiple SQL Servers has been a mash-up of log books, checklists, jobs, DDL triggers, scripts, and good ideas ...