Maintaining databases (Search Server 2008)

  • Article

Applies To: Microsoft Search Server 2008

 

Topic Last Modified: 2008-08-06

This section describes ways that you can help improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of SharePoint Products and Technologies databases by using some easily-applied planning, deployment, and maintenance practices.

A correctly planned and configured database farm is important to the optimal performance and reliability of Microsoft Search Server 2008. After the farm is operating, regular database maintenance such as defragmenting drives, managing file sizes, and balancing loads can help the databases to grow as necessary without impeding performance. Moving databases, often a necessary part of an equipment upgrade or service expansion, must be performed without data loss and with minimal downtime.

Before beginning any database maintenance, ensure you have read and understand the requirements and restrictions given in the following articles:

Task Requirements

The following requirements apply to many database maintenance operations:

  • Whenever a database is manipulated, such as creating, moving, or merging databases, correct SQL Server permissions must be granted to the account that is performing the task. Some operations require that the account have membership in the dbcreator fixed database role.

  • The account that uses the Stsadm command-line tool must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer.

  • Some database maintenance, such as moving, requires that the databases be stopped. Be sure to perform these tasks during periods of low usage and provide sufficient notice to all users.

  • Before beginning any database maintenance, ensure that the data backups are current.

  • Whenever possible, observe the following database limitations:

    • Databases should not exceed 100 gigabytes (GB). If a database is approaching this limit, consider splitting the database and moving some content to another database or server.

    • Databases perform best when they contain data that is accessed in similar ways. For example, a database that contains a read-write site collection and a read-only site collection may not perform as well as a database that contains only read-write site collections.

    • To avoid bottlenecks, avoid combining resources that are likely to be accessed at the same time into the same database.

To maintain databases, you can perform the following procedures:

See Also

Concepts

Operations for Search Server 2008
Protecting and restoring the farm (Search Server 2008)
Move and migrate servers and server farms (Search Server 2008)