One of the leading causes of inadequate database performance is insufficient administration or maintenance. Over time, the distribution of data within a database changes and can cause your system to behave differently. If you do not account for and respond to these changes, your system will experience performance degradation. A majority of database issues can be prevented if appropriate attention is paid to maintenance.
While Hyland Software, Inc. encourages you to develop a strategy that works best for your system, you should also follow specific guidelines that can be incorporated to ensure consistent database performance over time. The following best practices have been developed through years of experience working in close collaboration with many of Hyland Software, Inc.'s customers worldwide.
A key consideration when implementing maintenance tasks is the available timeframe in which they can run (maintenance window). Maintenance tasks should be monitored on a regular basis to ensure they are completed within the allotted timeframe.
For information specific to performance optimization, please consult the Performance section of this guide. There is also an Optimization Checklist (SQL Server) that can be found at the end of this document.