Database maintenance best practices

UPDATE: INDEXES & STATISTICS 

• default to weekly, but then escalating to daily for specific stats that need it
• You will need to update Column stats separately. Column stats do not get updated when you rebuild indexes or index stats

side note to be aware: Each time you update indexes or statistics on a table clears out the plan cache for those tables. Having outdated statistics can cause all sorts of issues, but updating statistics can also cause issues like parameter sniffing, we are not looking for a perfect plan but more like a good plan, a balance between the issues of outdated statistics against the parameter sniffing.

BACKUP SCHEDULE

Full Backups – WEEKLY

Differential Backups – DAILY (EVERY NIGHT)

Transaction Log Backups – Every few hours (ONLY IF Databases need to meet RPO of every few hours, additionally Database needs to be in FULL recovery mode)