When to periodically RESTART SQL SERVER 2008 R2? So I've read that it's really a bad practice to restart SQL Server on a production environment..

Does restarting SQL Server speed it up?

Automatically restart SQL Server 2008

Why are periodic restarts required to keep my instance performing well?

Then tell me this,

How many of you have maintained an SQL Server on a production environment without having to restart it for at least ONE year or more? If so, can you share some general guidelines on how to do this? namely with regards to the following:


Minimizing/eliminating deadlocks
Cost efficient CPU and Memory usage
Minimizing/eliminating memory leaks
Monitoring the servers' processes to identify increase resource consumption


Please pardon me if anyone would find this question as offensive, I would just like to be more enlightened with the subject matter.
From my experience, I've never needed to restart a production server, except for patches. Just like Marian, I do not understand how a reboot could have a beneficial effect on your 4 points. My simple advice would be to avoid reboots as much as possible, as they are no cure to your problems. Proper configuration, profiling ... will get you much further.