SQL Server SSE
If your SQL footprint is small enough, you can run SQL Server SSE. This will save you in license costs, but there are some other limitations with SSE. Besides the maximum size of a database, SQL SSE does not include the maintenance plans, to setup jobs for such things as backups and re-indexing.
This does not mean that you can not do these tasks automatically, it just means there is a bit more involved in setting them up. Personally, I prefer to setup the backups, re-indexing, rebuilding statistics, and so on, manually anyway as it gives me more control on just how the processing is done. So, I use the same procedure, whether or not the maintenance plan option is available, or not.
Anyway, to do these thing in SSE, the individual functions need to be run via SQL commands. My preference, is to setup a stored procedure for each function. So, one procedure for backup, another for history purge, another for rebuilding indexes, and so on. Once these procedures are created, then they may be executed via a command-line utility, such as osql. Therefore, it is a simple matter to create a batch file, to run the individual osql commands that perform each step. The batch file is then scheduled to execute at the desired time, via the Windows task scheduler.
Any processing that can be done via the maintenance plans, can be done this way, also. It just requires a little more time to setup.