United States Change | All Microsoft Sites
Microsoft Home | Servers and Tools
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides a policy-based system for managing one or more instances of SQL Server along with tools for performance monitoring, troubleshooting, and tuning that enable administrators to more efficiently manage their databases and SQL Server instances.
This functionality helps streamline tasks related to ensuring security and compliance, deploying patch upgrades, and resource utilization.
Use Performance Data Collection to troubleshoot, tune and monitor SQL Server 2008 instances across the enterprise
Define configuration policies for your enterprise by using Policy-Based Management
Use built-in framework facets and policies to manage surface area configuration and apply best practices
Click picture for a full view
SQL Server 2008 Management Studio
SQL Server 2008 includes tools that make the administrator successful and which are scalable across multiple servers and instances
Increase database administrator effectiveness by using SQL Server Management Studio to manage all SQL Server 2008 instances and services including relational databases, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Integration Services, and SQL Server Compact databases
View standard and custom reports in SQL Server Management Studio to help gain insight into the status of your system
SQL Server 2008 introduces support for Microsoft PowerShell, a powerful scripting shell that helps administrators and developers streamline server administration and application deployment.
Supports more complex logic than Transact-SQL scripts, giving administrators the ability to build robust administration scripts to streamline tasks.
Use PowerShell scripts to administer other Microsoft server products, giving administrators a common scripting language across servers for management as scale.
Performance Data Collection
System Center Operations Manager Management Pack
SQL Server Profiler
Monitor with insight and optimize the performance of your data services.
Use SQL Server Performance Data Collection to help integrate the collection, analysis, troubleshooting, and persistence of SQL Server diagnostics information
Collect performance data from performance counters, dynamic management views, SQL Trace, and other sources
Centralize storage of performance data from across the enterprise in a management data warehouse for baseline and historical comparisons
View performance data with built-in reports such as server activity, disk usage, and query activity reports
Use the SQL Server Management Pack to enable broader system administration that is scalable across your enterprise
Implement end to end service management of line-of-business (LOB) applications for greater visibility
Use rich, new reports and an easy-to-customize reporting environment to bring additional insight when troubleshooting and planning
Use SQL Server Profiler to capture server events for real-time diagnosis
Correlate traces with performance counters to analyze events and diagnose issues
Use dynamic management views (DMVs) to provide greater visibility into the database and a powerful, flexible, and security-enhanced infrastructure for proactive monitoring of database health and performance
Use Database Engine Tuning Advisor (DTA) to tune multiple databases from the same workload. Just select the databases to tune and DTA generates indexing and partitioning recommendations
Policy-Based Management
Policy-Based Framework
Use automation tools and policies to help reduce the time that administrators spend on routine maintenance and help enable them to be productive immediately.
Use Policy-Based Management to define configuration policies and apply them to servers, databases, tables, and other targets
Enforce policies proactively, on a scheduled basis, immediately following changes, or explicitly in real time
Organize servers into groups and apply policies to the group to scale management of servers
Define policies based on sets of logical properties called facets, which model the behavior or characteristics of policy targets
Create new policies easily from facets based on the configuration of existing objects, and apply these policies to other similar objects throughout the enterprise
Use SQL Server Management Studio to define policies that enable and disable server functionality and help to ensure that potentially unused features are not enabled and left in an unprotected state
Use best practice policy notifications to check configuration and database settings to warn against and prevent potentially problematic conditions in your environment
Automate routine tasks by using the distributed job scheduling and alert management capabilities of SQL Server Agent
Schedule tasks with the click of a button. Create database maintenance plans to help new administrators protect data assets
Use the Maintenance Plan Wizard or design surface to create workflows for your maintenance tasks
Manageability
