SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of policy-based management: the ability for database administrators to define a set of policies that the SQL Server engine will check and either enforce or report on.

When a policy is violated, SQL Server will return an error message that includes a URL for more details. The SQLServerPedia community is defining a list of best practices policies, and we're hosting the URLs for more information here. That way the community can build a helpful message page for each policy, helping developers work around the policy and see why it's enforced.

Building New Policy Pages

When building new policy-based management description pages here at SQLServerPedia, create new pages with naming formats like these:

PBM-BestPractices-AutoShrinkOff

The page name should have three parts:

• PBM - denotes that this is a policy-based management page.
• The type of policy it is - in this case, Best Practices.
• The facet that it's monitoring - in this case, making sure auto-shrink is turned off.