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SQL Server Monitoring

Monitor SQL server status, database attributes, SQL operations and be alerted about database performance spikes through instant alarms. The SQL failover cluster monitor can be monitored using the Site24x7 Windows agent, i.e. they will be auto-discovered and added for monitoring once the Windows agent is successfully installed.  

Supported Versions: SQL version 2008 and above.

Prerequisites

  • SQL version 2008 and above.
  • .NET version 3.0 and above.
  • Check for sufficient licensing. 

Add a SQL Monitor 

  1. Log in to Site24x7 and go to Server > Microsoft SQL Server (+). 
  2. Click on Download Site24x7 Windows Server Agent. Copy-paste the device key, when prompted, in the installation wizard.

Once the Windows agent installation is complete, the agent will auto-discover and add the SQL server for monitoring. Go to Server > Microsoft SQL Server to view the performance metrics for the SQL server.

If you don't want the application to be auto-discovered and added for monitoring, toggle No for the option Auto discover applications on the server in the Settings page (Admin > Server Monitor > Settings).

For Linux:

Monitor Microsoft SQL in a Linux environment. Install our ready-to-use plugin integration and start monitoring rightaway.

Monitor SQL Cluster

Whether a stand alone SQL server or a SQL cluster, the Windows agent will auto-discover and take it up as a single monitor license. You can get a single view for your entire SQL cluster, instead of having separate SQL monitors for active and passive nodes. This makes sure that the passive node is not shown incorrectly as DOWN. Set instant alerts to be notified on any failover between the active and passive nodes. Analyze from a detailed log report on the complete history of all your cluster's failovers.

Rediscover SQL Monitor

In the absence of SQL monitor in the Site24x7 web client or if it has been deleted previously, you can enable it using the option Discover Applications. Log in to Site24x7 and go to Server > Server Monitor > Servers > click on the associated Windows server monitor > hover on the hamburger icon beside the display name > click on Discover Applications.

Add a Threshold and Availability Profile

Once the SQL server monitor is successfully added to your Site24x7 account, add a Threshold and Availability profile to help the alarms engine decide if a specific resource has to be declared critical or down.

Security

The Site24x7 Windows monitoring agent uses perfmon counters for data collection that happens every five minutes. This is a read-only action. To fetch SQL cluster related metrics like cluster name, owner node etc., we use the PowerShell cmdlet:
Get-ClusterResource

No T-SQL query is used to fetch data. We do not ask for SQL server credentials and do not connect to the SQL servers directly for monitoring your Microsoft SQL Servers. Check out some FAQs on the security aspects for SQL Server monitoring.

Read more about the Windows agent security.

Licensing

This is an advanced monitor. 

Troubleshooting Tips

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