Dbcc Indexdefrag ...

Howdy,

Has anyone played around automating DBCC INDEXDEFRAG? I am in the process of setting up a job that will do a dbcc showcontig on all our databases every night, then based on the logicalfrag number, it will pick the top 3 fragmented indexes per database and run the dbcc indexdefrag command. I am having a couple of problems...

First, any ideas on how to capture the output of the dbcc indexdefrag? If i do something like
...

SET @.s_str = 'DBCC INDEXDEFRAG (' + @.dbname + ', ' + @.tablename + ',' + @.indxname + ')'

INSERT INTO #temp
EXEC (@.s_str)
...
it wont run because the defrag cant run in a user transaction which is created due to the insert statement.
Anyway, I need to find out if the defrag completed successfully.

Second, when running the defrag within an exec statement, as above, It only seems to work part of the time. I look at the result window, and for most of the indexes it says it completed it, yet 0 pages were moved and 0 pages removed. However, if I run the dbcc indexdefrag statement on its own, it seems to make changes... Any thoughts? anyone else find problems with the defrag?

TIAOpen the BOL and do a search on the "DBCC SHOWCONTIG" topic. In the section E. There is a script that you can cut & paste, then schedule a job and run till your hear content (with whatever level of fragmentation that you wanted to defrag, by changing the "SELECT @.maxfrag = xx " at the top of the script. I cut &paste it here for anyone who doesn't have the BOL handy:

E. Use DBCC SHOWCONTIG and DBCC INDEXDEFRAG to defragment the indexes in a database
This example shows a simple way to defragment all indexes in a database that is fragmented above a declared threshold.

/*Perform a 'USE <database name>' to select the database in which to run the script.*/
-- Declare variables
SET NOCOUNT ON
DECLARE @.tablename VARCHAR (128)
DECLARE @.execstr VARCHAR (255)
DECLARE @.objectid INT
DECLARE @.indexid INT
DECLARE @.frag DECIMAL
DECLARE @.maxfrag DECIMAL

-- Decide on the maximum fragmentation to allow
SELECT @.maxfrag = 30.0

-- Declare cursor
DECLARE tables CURSOR FOR
SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'

-- Create the table
CREATE TABLE #fraglist (
ObjectName CHAR (255),
ObjectId INT,
IndexName CHAR (255),
IndexId INT,
Lvl INT,
CountPages INT,
CountRows INT,
MinRecSize INT,
MaxRecSize INT,
AvgRecSize INT,
ForRecCount INT,
Extents INT,
ExtentSwitches INT,
AvgFreeBytes INT,
AvgPageDensity INT,
ScanDensity DECIMAL,
BestCount INT,
ActualCount INT,
LogicalFrag DECIMAL,
ExtentFrag DECIMAL)

-- Open the cursor
OPEN tables

-- Loop through all the tables in the database
FETCH NEXT
FROM tables
INTO @.tablename

WHILE @.@.FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
-- Do the showcontig of all indexes of the table
INSERT INTO #fraglist
EXEC ('DBCC SHOWCONTIG (''' + @.tablename + ''')
WITH FAST, TABLERESULTS, ALL_INDEXES, NO_INFOMSGS')
FETCH NEXT
FROM tables
INTO @.tablename
END

-- Close and deallocate the cursor
CLOSE tables
DEALLOCATE tables

-- Declare cursor for list of indexes to be defragged
DECLARE indexes CURSOR FOR
SELECT ObjectName, ObjectId, IndexId, LogicalFrag
FROM #fraglist
WHERE LogicalFrag >= @.maxfrag
AND INDEXPROPERTY (ObjectId, IndexName, 'IndexDepth') > 0

-- Open the cursor
OPEN indexes

-- loop through the indexes
FETCH NEXT
FROM indexes
INTO @.tablename, @.objectid, @.indexid, @.frag

WHILE @.@.FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
PRINT 'Executing DBCC INDEXDEFRAG (0, ' + RTRIM(@.tablename) + ',
' + RTRIM(@.indexid) + ') - fragmentation currently '
+ RTRIM(CONVERT(varchar(15),@.frag)) + '%'
SELECT @.execstr = 'DBCC INDEXDEFRAG (0, ' + RTRIM(@.objectid) + ',
' + RTRIM(@.indexid) + ')'
EXEC (@.execstr)

FETCH NEXT
FROM indexes
INTO @.tablename, @.objectid, @.indexid, @.frag
END

-- Close and deallocate the cursor
CLOSE indexes
DEALLOCATE indexes

-- Delete the temporary table
DROP TABLE #fraglist
GO

-- Good luck :-)

SVT