Technical Details

More about Scheduling

The scheduling in Db Maint 4.0 has changed quite a bit from earlier versions. When you define a task, you specify the base time and minute for the task. This is the time and minute when daily operations are executed. Hourly operations are executed at the hour specified in the schedule and the base minute. Minutely operations are executed at the minute specified and the offset from the base time.

The SQL Server agent task is scheduled at the least required frequency. If you only have daily schedules, then the Agent task is scheduled daily. If you have any hourly schedules, then the Agent task is scheduled every hour. If you have any minutely schedules, then the Agent task is schedules every 10 minutes.

When the Db Maint server is started, it compares the current time to the each operations schedule to determine whether that operation is to be performed. It also verifies that the operation has been specified in the job definition.

Using a 3:rd party scheduler

If you want to use some other scheduler than SQLExecutive/SQLServerAgent:

  1. Extract the taskid. The taskid is presented in the task dialog.

  2. Schedule the task with your scheduler. Make sure that you specify the same scheduling interval that SQLExecutive/SQLServerAgent has. Enter the taskid and the SQL Server name as the command-line switches. Example:

DBM 37 SRVNAME

  1. Disable the execution made by SQL Executive/SQLServerAgent. Either make sure that SQLExecutive/SQLServerAgent is not started, or clear the Enable checkbox for the task in SQL Enterprise Manager or Db Maint.