Quick SQL Server checklist

What do you check if you only have a limited amount of time to review a SQL Server. You can''t run your usual set of scripts. All you have is pen, paper and maybe a query window to run some T-SQL.

This is what I would try to gather.

a) Physical server

- Name (fully qualified) and IP address/addresses

- Amount of memory

- Number of CPUs

- Disks, capacity and free space

b) SQL Server

- Version

- Edition

- Build number

- min and max server memory

- CPU affinity

- index fill factor

- backup compression

- cost threshold for parallelism

- maxdop

c) Databases

- ownership

- recovery model

- compatibility level

- autoshrink, autoclose, autocreate stats etc - anything weird?

d) Scheduled jobs

- Backups (full and transaction logs)

- Maintenance

This should give you a sneak peak into the health of the server and any big ticket items that may need immediate attention.