After setting up any sql server, the MSSQL maintenance plan wizard should be run. If at all possible, the wizard should be run locally on the server as some options may not be available, such as "Include first-level subfolders" in the maintenance clean-up task. The maintenance clean-up task should always be included in a plan.

As a minimum, a plan should include;

1. weekly full back-up of user databases
2. a full back-up of the msdb database (contains dts data)
3. a full back up of the master DB
4. log shrinking of user databases
5. a maintenance clean-up task to remove back-up older than 4 weeks
6. archives should be stored on off-line or disk to disk backup systems