Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution

View all posts by Robert Seles →

Database administrators tend to use various scripts or applications, to make the daily SQL Server database maintenance
task easier.

Some more experienced administrators prefer to design and use their own scripts for these tasks. The scripts are usually
designed to fit the requirements imposed by the specific environment. After the scripts are thoroughly tested, they often
get included in a maintenance plan, or SQL Server agent job to automate their execution. Such solution is usually optimal
for some demanding environments like high traffic servers or databases that are still in development. Designing these
solutions usually take time, and require an experienced DBA skilled in T-SQL or PowerShell scripting.

On the other hand, some administrators like the simplicity offered by the 3rd party applications. The companies that
design these applications invest a great amount of effort to make their apps simple to use and feature-rich at the same
time. These applications usually come with the nicely-packed interfaces and do not require much of the experience from
their users. The drawback to this solution is certainly its price.

Ola Hallengren’s maintenance solution could be considered a hybrid of these two solutions, as it takes the best perks from
both options: it is simple, highly customizable, and it’s free. As it takes many parameters into account, it can be
configured to fit most demanding environments. But it can also be used successfully with the default settings on simpler
servers and databases. The jobs created by the Maintenance Solution automatically process all user databases on the
server. So be aware of that if databases on your server require different maintenance scenarios.

Ola’s SQL Server Maintenance Solution consists of various scripts that create jobs and stored procedures once installed
on the SQL Server. The entire solution was designed by Ola Hallengren, an MCITP database administrator and database
developer, who has been working with SQL Server since 2001. The solution consists of three parts:

1. SQL Server Backup

2. SQL Server Integrity Check
3. SQL Server Index and Statistics Maintenance

This article series will cover all three parts of this maintenance solution. In this part, installation and SQL Server Backup
solution will be described in more detail.

Installation
Before starting, make sure that all software requirements have been met. This should not be a problem, as the solution
supports all Windows versions of SQL Server, starting from SQL Server 2005. It is also supported on all editions of SQL
Server. Support for SQL Server 2017 on Linux is still work in progress.

To install the complete maintenance solution, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Ola Hallengren’s site, and download the file MaintenanceSolution.sql

2. Save the file anywhere on the hard drive, and open it in SSMS or any other script editor

3. Locate the following lines of code near the top of the script (around line 32):

SET @CreateJobs = 'Y'

SET @BackupDirectory = N'C:\Backup'

SET @CleanupTime = NULL

SET @OutputFileDirectory = NULL

SET @LogToTable = 'Y'

4. If needed, change the settings for the following variables:

Replace the value of the BackupDirectory variable (’C:\Backup’) with the preferred backup path. The provided
path will be used as a root directory for storing backup files. The network share can also be used, but in this
case, both SQL Server and SQL Server Agent services need to be run under a domain account with full control
of the directory and the network share
Set the integer value for the CleanupTime. This value specifies how long (in hours) will each backup file be
kept on the drive. After the specified time passes, the file will be deleted automatically. If default NULL value
is left in the script, the backup files will never be deleted automatically
OutputFileDirectory variable: this variable specifies the path for the log files that will be created after each job
is run. Specify a custom path if needed or leave the NULL value to use the default SQL Server error log
directory
LogToTable variable has only values for Yes and No. Default value is set to Yes, and leaving this value as is will
log the results of each created job in the CommandLog table

1 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

5. Open SSMS, and connect to the server where you want to install the solution

6. Make sure that the SQL Server agent is installed and running. To start the SQL Server Agent, expand the node of the
connected server, right-click on the SQL Server Agent, and click on Start in the context menu

7. Execute the MaintenanceSolution.sql against the server. The script creates one table (dbo.CommandLog), one
function, and four stored procedures in the master database. It also creates 11 pre-created SQL Server Agent jobs.
Each of the created jobs will be discussed separately

Installed components
As mentioned above, the script installed the CommandLog table, four stored procedures and 11 agent jobs.

1. CommandLog table is used for logging. Parameters such as: DatabaseName, Command, CommandType and
StartTime are logged for each operation, while the SchemaName, ObjectName, ObjectType, StatisticsName,
PartitionNumber and ExtendedInfo only get logged for the specific operations

2 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

2. Stored procedures determine the settings for each created job

CommandExecute stored procedure is the crucial component of the maintenance solution, as it is used by
all other created procedures and jobs. Its main purpose is executing various T-SQL commands, recording the
starting and ending times for each command to the log, as well as the final operation outcome
DatabaseBackup stored procedure is designed to manage all backup maintenance tasks. It is usually used
with the default settings, but in some specific cases, parameters like Verify, Compress, ChekSum can be
changed from ’N’ to ’Y’ in order to verify, compress, or run cheksum on the created database backups
DatabaseIntegrityCheck stored procedure is used for integrity check jobs. More details will be provided in
the upcoming article of the SQL Server maintenance solution series
IndexOptimize stored procedure is used by IndexOptimize job. All its parameters will be elaborated in the
third article of the maintenance Solution series

3. SQL Server Agent jobs are the final product of the script. All jobs are created without a schedule, and these need
to be set manually by the user. There are total of 11 jobs: 4 backup jobs, 2 database integrity check jobs, one index
optimize job, and 4 cleanup jobs. This article will focus on the backup jobs

The names for the backup jobs are pretty much self-explanatory. To confirm that these jobs are configured properly, it is
best to run each job separately.

DatabaseBackup – SYSTEM_DATABASES – FULL

As its name suggests, this job creates a full database backup of each system database. Since all system databases use
Simple Recovery Model, it is not possible to backup their transaction logs. To run this job, right click on it in Object
Explorer, and click on Start job at step… option in context menu.

3 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

If the job was configured properly, the success message will be displayed:

To confirm that backup files were created, navigate to the backup folder that was specified in the script. The backup job
created a new folder on the specified path:

The folder is named after the server where jobs were configured (DOMENATOR$MAIN). The backup job created files in
separate folders with the following structure:

[Root]\Server$Instance\Database\BackupType\Server$Instance_database_BackupType_Date_Time.bak

4 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

In this example, the full path to the backup file is:

E:\Backup\DOMENATOR$MAIN\master\FULL\DOMENATOR$MAIN_master_FULL_20171201_081822.bak

DatabaseBackup – USER_DATABASES – FULL

Creates one full database backup file for each of the user databases, regardless of the recovery model. The job is run from
the context menu in the same way as in the previous example. A success message is generated by the completed job.

Folder hierarchy and backup file naming rules are also identical to the previous example: each database has its own folder
that further contains a folder for each backup type. As this job creates full database backup files, the full filepath to the
AdventureWorks2014 backup file is:

E:\Backup\DOMENATOR$MAIN\AdventureWorks2014
\FULL\DOMENATOR$MAIN_AdventureWorks2014_FULL_20171201_094214.bak

DatabaseBackup – USER_DATABASES – DIFF

The job creates differential backups of all user databases. Make sure to create at least one full database backup for user
databases before running this job, or else the job might fail. Same folder hierarchy and naming rules apply to this job. For
example, the differential backup created by this job for the AdventureWorks2008 database will be located at:

E:\Backup\DOMENATOR$MAIN\AdventureWorks2008
\DIFF\DOMENATOR$MAIN_AdventureWorks2008_DIFF_20171201_101016.bak

5 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

DatabaseBackup – USER_DATABASES – LOG

This job creates the transaction log backup of all databases that use Full or Bulk-logged recovery models. Databases in
Simple recovery model are skipped automatically. Here is the path of the transaction log backup created by the job for the
AdventureWorks2014 database:

E:\Backup\DOMENATOR$MAIN\AdventureWorks2014
\LOG\DOMENATOR$MAIN_AdventureWorks2014_LOG_20171201_103452.trn

Automating the process

In order to be able to run any of the created jobs automatically, and use the backup solution to its full potential, it is
necessary to configure the schedule for each job. This step is left out of Ola’s script deliberately, as each environment
requires specific backup schedule that heavily depends on predefined RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO
(Recovery Time Objective).

To define a schedule for any of the four backup jobs, perform the following steps:

1. In Object Explorer, expand SQL Server Agent and Jobs nodes. Right click on the backup job to open the
context menu, and click on Properties. In this example, the schedule will be configured for DatabaseBackup –
SYSTEM_DATABASES – FULL job. The schedule is configured in the same way for all other backup jobs from
the solution

6 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

2. The Job Properties window is opened. Select the Schedules tab, and click on the New button to create a new
schedule

3. In New Job Schedule window, provide the schedule name, and set the type and frequency for the schedule. As
this schedule is used by the job that backs up the system databases, it will be set to run once per day at 12:00 AM.
Optionally, set the start and end dates for the schedule. Click OK to save changes

7 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM
Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Maintenance Solution https://www.sqlshack.com/ola-hallengrens-sql-server-maintenance-soluti...

4. Click OK button in Job Properties window to use created schedule. The job will run automatically on the
specified schedule from now on

Next articles in this series:

Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server Maintenance Solution – Database integrity check

Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server Maintenance Solution – Index and statistics maintenance

Downloads
MaintenanceSolution.sql

Useful links
SQL Server Backup
Tweaking the Defaults for Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Scripts

About
Latest Posts

Robert Seles

Robert is a SQL Server and IT enthusiast with many years of experience as a computer repair technician.

He has a great passion for new technologies, science, video games, and medieval history. He also likes reading, writing,
and learning new languages.

Robert is currently working for ApexSQL LLC as Software Sales Engineer where he specializes database backups and
indexes.

View all posts by Robert Seles

Latest posts by Robert Seles (see all)

8 of 8 5/9/19, 4:15 PM