So I wanted to post this to the forum to see what idea's or tips there might be to help me out.
We have an environment that's been operational for many many years. It's been through it's shares of problems, upgrades, swaps, modules, etc. We've had the works.
Doing an audit I've noticed remnants and orphaned files. More specifically what I mean is for example I'll find remnants of old updates. Remnants of modules we've had proof of concept on but never really used. Remnants of modules we did use but no longer do. We find connection strings still pointed towards these places that are no longer valid, connection strings to old servers that are no longer part of the monitoring environment and solarwinds. We find site settings that belong to older sites no longer used. etc. There is plenty of remaining clutter that needs to be cleaned up.
My problem is when it comes to finding and how to properly clean these things out without it affecting production. Purpose is to keep an organized and efficient system that can be scaled further for future use. I find that with old connection strings I've had them removed several times before but upon running configuration wizard they are added back on.
In our database the data also needs to be better maintained.
Can anyone show me or guide me to how to clean up these? Or better yet, how do admin's on here maintain a clean running environment?