SQL Server Tips by Robin Schumacher

Scheduling Statistical Collections

Once a decision has been made as to which metrics are to be tracked and analyzed and which method should be used to accomplish the statistical collection, the DBA can then focus on how to schedule the collection intervals. This is dictated by the dynamics of the actual SQL Servers being tracked.

As an example, a very static system may need to collect storage metrics only once a week or at most once a day. Even a dynamic system might need storage measures collected only once in a twenty-four hour period. However, system usage and performance metrics are another matter. Certain measures may need to be collected once an hour or even once every half-hour.

In terms of the actual scheduling mechanism, SQL Server provides SQL Agent, which has proven to be a fairly reliable scheduling system. The combination of stored procedures, which do the actual statistical collection, along with scheduled executions through SQL Agent has proven to be good for statistical collections.

The above book excerpt is from:

High-Performance SQL Server DBA
Tuning & Optimization Secrets

ISBN: 0-9761573-6-5
Robin Schumacher

 http://www.rampant-books.com/book_2005_2_sql_server_dba.htm