• Article

History Cleanup Task (Maintenance Plan)

Use the History Cleanup Task dialog to discard old historical information from tables in the msdb database. This task supports deleting backup and restore history, SQL Server Agent Job history, and maintenance plan history. Deleting SQL Server Agent Job history is not available on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 servers.

This statement uses the sp_purge_jobhistory and sp_delete_backuphistory statements.

  • Connection
    Select the server connection to use when performing this task.

  • New
    Create a new server connection to use when performing this task. The New Connection dialog box is described later in this topic.

  • Backup and restore history
    Retaining records of when recent backups were created can help SQL Server create a recovery plan when you want to restore a database. The retention period should be at least the frequency of full database back ups.

  • SQL Server Agent Job history
    This history can help you troubleshoot failed jobs, or determine why database actions occurred.

  • Maintenance plan history
    This history can help you troubleshoot failed maintenance plan jobs, or determine why database actions occurred.

  • Remove historical data older than
    Specify age of items that you want to delete.

  • View T-SQL
    View the Transact-SQL statements performed against the server for this task, based on the selected options.

    Note

    When the number of objects affected is large, this display can take a considerable amount of time.

New Connection Dialog Box

  • Connection name
    Enter a name for the new connection.

  • Select or enter a server name
    Select a server to connect to when performing this task.

  • Refresh
    Refresh the list of available servers.

  • Enter information to log on to the server
    Specify how to authenticate against the server.

  • Use Windows integrated security
    Connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine with Microsoft Windows Authentication.

  • Use a specific user name and password
    Connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine using SQL Server Authentication. This option is not available.

  • User name
    Provide a SQL Server login to use when authenticating. This option is not available.

  • Password
    Provide a password to use when authenticating. This option is not available.