During maintenance, which action checks the integrity of the SQL database?

• A. Backup
• B. Check
• C. Rebuild
• D. Optimize

Answer: (B)

Validating the database’s integrity is what the Check action does. It runs a comprehensive set of integrity checks on the SQL database, typically implemented as DBCC CHECKDB, to verify both logical and physical consistency of all objects—tables, indexes, and allocation structures. This helps detect corruption or structural problems early, preventing data loss or application errors.

Backup preserves data but doesn’t verify internal integrity. Rebuild focuses on fixing or re-creating indexes to reduce fragmentation, not on overall integrity checks. Optimize targets performance, updating statistics and reindexing, rather than performing a full integrity validation. So, the action that checks the integrity of the SQL database is the Check operation.