SQL Server: Maintenance Plans
Database downtime costs money—and poorly maintained SQL Server instances are your biggest risk. This course teaches you to automate backups, integrity checks, and cleanup jobs so your databases stay healthy without manual intervention. You’ll build production-ready maintenance strategies in under three hours.
AIU.ac Verdict: Essential for SQL Server DBAs and data engineers who need to prevent failures and optimise performance at scale. The course is hands-on and vendor-backed by Pluralsight, though it assumes basic SQL Server familiarity—complete beginners may need foundational knowledge first.
What This Course Covers
You’ll work through the full maintenance plan lifecycle: creating and configuring plans, scheduling jobs, and monitoring execution. The course covers critical tasks including automated backups, DBCC integrity checks, index maintenance, and transaction log management. Jonathan Kehayias walks you through real-world scenarios where maintenance plans prevent data loss and performance degradation.
Practical modules focus on troubleshooting failed jobs, integrating alerts, and scaling maintenance across multiple databases. You’ll learn when to use built-in plans versus custom T-SQL scripts, and how to audit maintenance activity for compliance. By the end, you’ll be confident deploying maintenance strategies that keep production systems stable.
Who Is This Course For?
Ideal for:
- SQL Server DBAs: Need to automate routine maintenance and reduce manual overhead across multiple instances.
- Data engineers: Building data pipelines that depend on healthy, well-maintained SQL Server databases.
- IT operations professionals: Responsible for database uptime and want to implement preventative maintenance without hiring specialist DBAs.
May not suit:
- SQL Server novices: This course assumes you understand SQL Server architecture, backups, and basic administration—start with fundamentals first.
- Cloud-only practitioners: If you work exclusively with Azure SQL Database or managed services, maintenance plans work differently and this on-premises focus may not apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does SQL Server: Maintenance Plans take?
2 hours 39 minutes. Designed to fit into a working day or split across two sessions.
Do I need SQL Server installed locally to follow along?
Yes. Pluralsight provides sandboxes, but you’ll benefit most from hands-on practice on your own instance or a lab environment.
Will this course cover Azure SQL Database maintenance?
No—this focuses on on-premises SQL Server. Azure SQL has different maintenance models and automation approaches.
Is Jonathan Kehayias a recognised authority?
Yes. He’s a SQL Server MVP and recognised expert in database administration and performance tuning. Pluralsight only accepts the top 5.5% of applicants as course authors.
Course by Jonathan Kehayias on Pluralsight. Duration: 2h 39m. Last verified by AIU.ac: March 2026.
