I saw a post recently asking about whether or not the general community recommended maintenance plans over custom scripts. My first response was that the plans are limited and custom scripts make more sense, but I started to think about this a little more and I wasn't sure that's the case anymore.
In SS2K5, we got a subsystem based on SSIS that allowed more complex maintenance plans than existed in SQL Server 2000.
Would you recommend maintenance plans or scripts to an intermediate DBA?
What's your feeling in terms of someone that ought to be comfortable scripting, and understanding scripts they might find on SQLServerCentral. Obviously they should test them, but I know that many people don't, or that they trust scripts because it's got someone's name on it. A maintenance plan, while limited, is "blessed" by Microsoft and built into the product.
For the accidental DBA, what do you recommend and why? I'll say that I tend to push maintenance plans for people that don't know better. They work, and while you can't do everything, at least you can do good, basic maintenance on your SQL Server.
Which I think is better than dropping something there you don't understand, haven't tested, and can't necessarily be sure it works as you need it to work.
Steve Jones
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