SQL Server Agent

SQL Server Agent is a service installation is done along with SQL Server DE installation. Only exception is SQL Server Express Edition which does not enable SQL Server Agent service. 

SQL Server Agent is a service to plan, execute and monitor regular tasks (jobs). The first approach that we can imagine is the planning and execution of regular administration tasks like those contained in maintenance plans (backups, reindexing, and so on). However, SQL Server and its services also need to execute other automated actions, for example:

• Master Data Services jobs for the internal maintenance of the MDS database
• Reporting Services (in native mode) jobs for regular subscriptions
• SQL Server replications are internally represented as sets of jobs
• When data collection diagnostics are configured, collection jobs are created and executed

We will discuss features of SQL Server Agent throughout the book.