Explanation
Maintenance plans create a workflow of the tasks required to make sure that your database is optimized, regularly backed up, and free of inconsistencies.
Maintenance plans can be created to perform the following task (among others): Back up the database and transaction log files. Database and log backups can be retained for a specified period. This lets you create a history of backups to be used if you have to restore the database to a time earlier than the last database backup.
You can also perform differential backups.