Ut oh. Are you drawing a maintenance plan? If so, here are some comments.

1 - Break plans into small pieces since they need to be scheduled at different times.

2 - Never use the shrink database as part of a scheduled plan. This should be a one time operation that you watch run if you ever do it.

Here are some suggestions.

A - Create plan to do a full backup of all user databases and then clean up *.bak files > 4 weeks old.

If databases are small, schedule every night.

B - Create plan to do a differentail backup of all selected databases and then clean up *.bak files > 4 weeks old.

This is for larger databases. Schedule the full plan on Sunday nite, schedule the differential plan on Mon-Sat.

C - Create plan to do a log backup of all user databases and then clean up *.trn files > 4 weeks old.

There is where you choose how much data loss the business line is willing to accept. A hourly log backup is saying that you business is willing to lose 1 hr of data.

D - Size your databases correctly. Current size + delta. Grow by MB, not size. The log, if backed up regularly and does not have massive data input should not grow.

E - Do not forget to repeat steps A & B for system databases.

F - Do not forget to have at least 4 data files for tempdb.

If you are interested in plans created by SSIS, I am doing a series of articles on my blog.

http://craftydba.com/?p=3145

Also, take a look at http://ola.hallengren.com/, ola hallengrens backup scripts if you decide to use TSQL.

Good luck with your MCDBA exam. I did mine serveral years back.