Using Db Maint, Working with…

The Main Window

Tree Pane (left)

This is the left region of the main window.

The easiest way to work with Db Maint is to use the secondary mouse-button ("right-clicking") on the various objects and use the context (“pop-up”) menu presented. Explore!

User defined dialogs.

This is an interesting feature that allows you to add your own menu items. These can be configured at the Server, Database, Table or Index level. You can add the selected object name or id as a parameter to the command and you can also specify up to 6 placeholders. See User defined commands.

Tasks:

Here you can add, modify, delete, start tasks and see which tasks that are currently executing. The Task settings dialog will be presented if you choose to add or modify a task.

Jobs:

Use this folder if you want to add, modify or delete jobs. The Job Definition dialog will be presented if you choose to add or modify a job.

Backup devices:

Use this folder if you want to add, delete backup devices or if you want to see what backup sets that a backup device contains. If you choose to add or show contents on a backup device, you will be presented the Backup devices dialog.

Database groups:

Here you can add, modify or delete database groups. Adding or modifying will take you to the Database Groups dialog. There is one predefined database group (with a hard-coded group name):

Systemgroup <all> (exclude from)

If a job is defined over the <all> group, all databases that exist at the execution time will be included in the job. You might want to exclude some databases from the <all> group.

Databases:

This folder supports several operations:

Interactive operations

The interactive operations supports include interactive backup, integrity check and reorganization. See Interactive operations.

Show backups

When you select this, Db Maint will read the backup devices as well as the backup system tables in msdb and present the backups for this database (Db Maint will only present backups which physically exists). You can right-click on a backup set and select “Restore…” which will take you to the Restore dialog.

Show fragmentation

You can easily get an overview of the fragmentation level for the indexes in the database. The View Fragmentation information dialog allows you to sort based on highest, lowest fragmentation level etc.

Database properties

The Database properties dialog show you general information about the database and also has a space usage tab which makes it easy to get an overview of how much space the tables uses (with an option to include index information).

Set database options

You can read and set all the different database options using the Database options dialog.

Show tables

Db Maint will present all tables in the database. You can right-click on a table and select “Show Indexes…” to see which indexes exists on the table. If you right click on an index and select “Show fragmentation…” Db Maint will execute DBCC SHOWCONTIG for that index and present the result in the Fragmentation report dialog.

Show oldest open transaction

This will execute the DBCC OPENTRAN statement for the selected database. The oldest open transaction sets the limit for what log records are removed from the transaction log when you truncate or backup the transaction log.

Performance monitor:

Use this dialog to configure database and counters for performance logging (the Performance monitor configuration dialog) and to view the logged counters (the Performance viewer dialog).

Db Maint Log Pane (right)

This is the right region of the main window and presents the Db Maint log. Only the outcome of each task execution is shown here. To view the logged messages for a task execution, select the row, right-click and select “Details” (or double-click on the row). That will present the Log Details dialog. The type column shows the most severe message produced by the task execution.

You can also delete the logged information for a certain task execution (right-click and select “Delete”).

If you right-click and select “Truncate log”, the Log options dialog will be displayed.

Selecting “Exclude error message” will display the Exclude SQL Server messages dialog.

Alter the sorting order for the log pane:

From the View menu, select the desired sort order.

You can also click in the header of the log table to define sort order. The chosen sorting order is indicated by a plus (+) sign for descending order or a minus (-) sign for ascending order.

Define what to view from the errorlog:

From the View menu, select what you want to see, error, warning and/or information.

Note that error, warning and information are not mutually exclusive, you can choose more than one.

Performance Chart Pane (right)

If you have logged performance counters and right-click the “Performance monitor” tab, you can check the “View chart” option. The log view is now replaced with a chart that display logged performance information. See Performance viewer for more information.