SQL Server script to rebuild all indexes for all tables and all databases

Problem

One of the main functions of a DBA is to maintain database indexes.  There have been several tips written about different commands to use for both index rebuilds and index defrags as well as the differences between index maintenance with SQL Server.  In addition, other tips have been written about using maintenance plans to maintain indexes on all databases.  One of the issues with maintenance plans is that they don't always seem to be as reliable as you would hope and you also sometimes get false feedback on whether the task actually was successful or not.  In this tip we look at a simple script that could be used to rebuild all indexes for all databases.

Solution

The one nice thing about maintenance plans is that it works across multiple databases and therefore you can push out one task to handle the same activity across all of your databases.  The problem that I have seen with maintenance plans is that sometimes they do not work as expected, therefore here is another approach.
The script below allows you to rebuild indexes for all databases and all tables within a database.  This could be further tweaked to handle only indexes that need maintenance as well as doing either index defrags or index rebuilds.
The script uses two cursors one for the databases and another for the tables within the database.  In addition, it uses the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES view to list all of the tables within a database. 
Because we need to change from database to database we also need to create dynamic SQL code for the queries.  For the DBCC DBREINDEX option we can just pass in the parameters, but for the ALTER INDEX statement we need to build the query dynamically.  Here is the script.

DECLARE @Database VARCHAR(255)   DECLARE @Table VARCHAR(255)  DECLARE @cmd NVARCHAR(500)  DECLARE @fillfactor INT

SET @fillfactor = 90
DECLARE DatabaseCursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT name FROM MASTER.dbo.sysdatabases   WHERE name NOT IN ('master','msdb','tempdb','model','distribution')   ORDER BY 1
OPEN DatabaseCursor
FETCH NEXT FROM DatabaseCursor INTO @Database  WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0  BEGIN

   SET @cmd = 'DECLARE TableCursor CURSOR FOR SELECT ''['' + table_catalog + ''].['' + table_schema + ''].['' +
  table_name + '']'' as tableName FROM ' + @Database + '.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
  WHERE table_type = ''BASE TABLE'''  

   -- create table cursor
   EXEC (@cmd)
   OPEN TableCursor  

   FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @Table  
   WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0  
   BEGIN  

       IF (@@MICROSOFTVERSION / POWER(2, 24) >= 9)
       BEGIN
           -- SQL 2005 or higher command
           SET @cmd = 'ALTER INDEX ALL ON ' + @Table + ' REBUILD WITH (FILLFACTOR = ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(3),@fillfactor) + ')'
           EXEC (@cmd)
       END
       ELSE
       BEGIN
          -- SQL 2000 command
          DBCC DBREINDEX(@Table,' ',@fillfactor)
       END

       FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @Table  
   END  

   CLOSE TableCursor  
   DEALLOCATE TableCursor

   FETCH NEXT FROM DatabaseCursor INTO @Database  END
CLOSE DatabaseCursor   DEALLOCATE DatabaseCursor

The script will work for both SQL 2000 and higher versions.  For SQL 2000 it uses DBREINDEX and for SQL Server 2005 and higher it uses ALTER INDEX.  Thanks go out to LittlePanthers for providing the code snippet to check the version of SQL Server.
Also, I have excluded the system databases, so you can include these or also add other databases to exclude from you index maintenance routines.

Next Steps

• This is a simple base script that could be modified into a stored procedure and also allow you to pass other parameters such as doing an index rebuild or an index defrag.
• Make the index rebuild statements more robust with other options.
• You could also modify this to read from a table that you create to identify which databases and which indexes you want to run this against.  You can look at index fragmentation and only rebuild the indexes that need to be rebuilt.
• This approach rebuilds all indexes, so be careful if you run this on very large indexes.