How TO: Create SQL Central Management Server and Server Group

One of the cool things that was added a few years back was the Central Management Servers feature. It was introduced in the Standard and Enterprise editions of SQL Server 2008. This feature helps DBAs to maintain multiple SQL Server instances across an enterprise environment and provides two major benefits when multiple SQL Server instances need to be affected by a specific action:

• An execution of a specific T-SQL query against SQL Server instances registered within Central Management Servers
  
• An evaluation of a set of policies on SQL Server instances registered within Central Management Servers.
  

After you create a central management server, you can execute queries against a whole group (single or multiple server groups) at the same time and one (or more) registered servers. Using SQL Server Management Studio, this is how you can create a central management server. (I will also show you how to add one or more server groups to the central management server and add one or more registered servers to the server groups)

Create a central management server

1. In SQL Server Management Studio, on the View menu, click Registered Servers.
   

   
   

2. In Registered Servers, expand Database Engine, right-click Central Management Servers, and then click Register Central Management Server.
   

   
   

3. In the New Server Registration dialog box, select the instance of SQL Server that you want to become the central management server from the drop-down list of servers. You must use Windows Authentication for the central management server.
   

   
   

4. In Registered Server, enter a server name and optional description.
   

   
   

5. From the Connection Properties tab, review or modify the network and connection properties. For more information, see Connect to Server (Connection Properties Page) Database Engine
   
6. Click Test, to test the connection.
   

   
   

7. Click Save. The instance of SQL Server will appear under the Central Management Servers folder.
   

   
   

Create a new server group and add servers to the group

1. From Registered Servers, expand Central Management Servers. Right-click the instance of SQL Server added in the procedure above and select New Server Group.
   

   
   

2. In New Server Group Properties, enter a group name and optional description.
   

   
   

3. From Registered Servers, right-click the server group and click New Server Registration.
   

   
   

4. From New Server Registration, select an instance of SQL Server. Click Test, to test the connection and then Click Save.
   

   
   

5. The instance of SQL Server will appear under the Central Management Servers folder. Add more servers as appropriate.
   

   
   

6. Now you can execute queries against the whole group
   

   
   

7. I ran this query
   

— Change backup compression to be on

sp_configure
‘backup compression default’, 1 reconfigure

1. Here are the results
   

   
   

For more information, please see the following: Create a Central Management Server and Server Group (SQL Server Management Studio)