22-25 April 2026 
Video unavailable
SQLBits 2025
Getting Started with Index Maintenance
In this session, we will first take a look at the basics of index maintenance:
• what it is?
• why do we need it?
• where do you start?
• what solutions exist?
Then I'll provide a few quick and easy steps to get you started on implementing index maintenance in your own environments. We will consider the options for index maintenance and focus on the implementation of Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution.
We’ll look at basic configuration of the indexing maintenance jobs from Ola's solution with some simple parameters. We will then uncover ways to deploy this and outline any gotchas to be aware of along the way. This session is designed to empower you to think more on your index maintenance and improve your process
Imagine we see a database for the first time and know nothing about this it. It You could either be going into a new client or discovering a database you’ve never known about previously.
There are a lot of things you want to check over in this scenario, for example, are backups being taken, are integrity checks in place and is there any corruption in the database? Another key thing to check is whether there is any index maintenance currently in place.
In this session, we will first take a look at the basics of index maintenance:
• what it is?
• why do we need it?
• where do you start?
• what solutions exist?
Then I'll provide a few quick and easy steps to get you started on implementing index maintenance in your own environments. We will consider the options for index maintenance and focus on the implementation of Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution. This is such an impressive tool and it is open source and free for all to use and yet we still go into clients where no index maintenance is in place.
We’ll look at basic configuration of the indexing maintenance jobs from Ola's solution with some simple parameters. We will then uncover ways to deploy this and outline any gotchas to be aware of along the way. Either if you aren't using Ola's solution or if you weren't aware of some of the configurations, this session will empower you to think more on your index maintenance and improve your process.
There are a lot of things you want to check over in this scenario, for example, are backups being taken, are integrity checks in place and is there any corruption in the database? Another key thing to check is whether there is any index maintenance currently in place.
In this session, we will first take a look at the basics of index maintenance:
• what it is?
• why do we need it?
• where do you start?
• what solutions exist?
Then I'll provide a few quick and easy steps to get you started on implementing index maintenance in your own environments. We will consider the options for index maintenance and focus on the implementation of Ola Hallengren’s Maintenance Solution. This is such an impressive tool and it is open source and free for all to use and yet we still go into clients where no index maintenance is in place.
We’ll look at basic configuration of the indexing maintenance jobs from Ola's solution with some simple parameters. We will then uncover ways to deploy this and outline any gotchas to be aware of along the way. Either if you aren't using Ola's solution or if you weren't aware of some of the configurations, this session will empower you to think more on your index maintenance and improve your process.