How to: Create and Configure a Policy-Based Management Policy

A Policy-Based Management policy contains a Policy-Based Management condition and a target set that can be a server instance, a server object, a database, or a database object that is affected by the condition. A policy can use a condition that was created earlier, or you can create a condition when you are creating the policy. A single condition can be used in many policies. A policy can only contain a single condition. Policies also contain an evaluation mode property that is set by using the Evaluation Mode box.

To create a policy

  1. In Object Explorer, expand Management, expand Policy Management, right-click Policies, and then click New Policy.

  2. On the Create NewPolicy,General page, in the Name box, type the name of the new policy.

  3. If you want the policy to be enabled as soon as it is created, select the Enabled check box. If the evaluation mode is On demand, the Enabled check box is not available.

  4. In the Check condition box, select one of the existing conditions, or select New Condition. To edit a condition, select the condition and then click the build (...) button. For more information, see How to: Create and Configure a Policy-Management Condition.

  5. In the Against targets box, select one or more target types for this policy. Some conditions and facets can only be applied to certain types of targets. The available target sets appear in the associated box. Expand Every to select a filtering condition for some types of the targets. If no targets appear in this box, the check condition is scoped at the server level.

  6. In the Evaluation Mode box, select how this policy will behave. Different conditions can have different valid evaluation modes. For more information about which evaluation modes are valid, see Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management.

  7. If the policy will be evaluated on a schedule, set the evaluation mode to On schedule, and then click Pick to select a schedule, or click New to create a new schedule.

  8. To limit the policy to subset of the target types, in the Server restriction box, select from limiting conditions or create a new condition.

  9. On the Description page, in the Category box, select an optional policy category or create a new one.

  10. Type an optional description of the policy.

  11. In the Additional help hyperlink: Text to display box, type the text to appear as a hyperlink.

  12. In the Additional help hyperlink: Address box, type a hyperlink. You can provide a link to a Web page that starts with http:// or https://, or provide a mail link that starts with mailto://.

  13. After you type a hyperlink, click the Test Link button to check the validity of the hyperlink.

  14. To create the policy, click OK.

To view or modify a policy

  1. In Object Explorer, expand Management, expand Policy Management, expand Policies, right-click a policy, and then click Properties.

  2. View the policy in the Policy, General page. Modify as needed.

To delete a policy

  • In Object Explorer, expand Management, expand Policy Management, expand Policies, right-click a policy, and then click Delete.

Security

Requires membership in the PolicyAdministratorRole role in the msdb database.