This week I noticed a blog post from Paul Randal that mentioned 5 Things to Remove from SQL Server. Various other people chimed in and there were even a few specific recommendations for SSIS from Jamie Thomson and SSRS from Jes Borland. There are a lot of posts out there from various people, and I think I've read most of them. Even the funny 5 Things SQL Server Should Truncate from Brent Ozar. Despite the fact that Redmond Developer didn't like his rant, I did.

So what should be removed from SQL Server? I'm sure we all have our lists, but going through the lists there are some consistent themes. I've listened to what's there and here's my list, along with the Connect links. I've submitted these to the SQL team, and I'd love to see if the rest of you think they're worth voting up.

1. Auto Shrink - Paul listed this, and I cannot for the life of my figure out what this does for us. Why is it in there and why is it needed for backwards compatability. If you upgrade a db with this, just whack the setting. If it's in a maintenance plan you upgrade, delete the task. If customers are concerned, put up a BIG RED BUTTON that says it's going away when they press this and then generate the code for them to do a db shrink of files. If someone really needs to do this, let them, but please, please, please just whack this code.
2. Full Recovery Model by Default - As much as I think most dbs should be in full mode, too many people get themselves into other issues because they don't have log backups set. Change this default, or automatically build a maintenance plan by default for all databases in this mode.
3. Boost SQL Server Priority - I've almost never seen this recommended or useful. This ought to be removed and replaced with a startup flag of some sort if it's really needed.
4. SSMS Add-ins - I'm torn between whacking SSMS as Buck Woody suggests, or allowing add-ins. Either way, Brent has hit it that this was built by the six blind men and the elephant. We're the elephant and guess who the blind men are?
5. Auto-close - This might have made sense when machines were less powerful, but at this time, does this really help? Even for Express instances? If you keep this, remove it from the database options page. Make it a startup trace flag or some equally difficult-to-implement switch so that someone really has to aim their head at the wall to cause a concussion.

I can't speak to SSIS or SSRS, or the other systems, but we have a very mature product. I think we're at the point where it makes some sense to match features with other RDBMSes at times, but there are also places we should trim the product, make it more consistent, and smoother. Any rough edges will get snagged by someone who doesn't know enough about how to run those high profile system that makes the news.

If you agree, click the links and vote up the suggestions.

Steve Jones