NPM 9.5 and SQL CLR

We are looking to upgrade to 9.5 and have actually done so on our test box and it looks great. The problem we are having is getting our DB guys to enable SQL CLR.

It looks like it will be a big deal for them to enable this and so we need to know why this is needed and if there are any other options.

Thanks

Jason

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Accepted answers

MTorok

Hi Jay,

Have you taken a look at these KB articles?

knowledgebase.solarwinds.com/.../How do I enable CLR on a SQL 2008 Server.

knowledgebase.solarwinds.com/.../How do I enable CLR Integration for SQL Server 2005?

knowledgebase.solarwinds.com/.../What does my DBA need to know about CLR Integration?

The last one provides a couple links to white papers:

For more information, see the following articles: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131071.aspx and http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0603031.

Thanks,

Michael

All comments

bshopp

Since we dropped SQL 2000 support, we are now able to use SQL CLR for improved performance. Orion NPM uses secure SQL CLR stored procedures for selected, non‑business data operation

jasonbrown

So it is mandatory for all NPM versions going forward?

My DB team was very concerned about this from a security perspective (I dont know enough about it to know) but they basically say that they wont support this on the Enterprise DB's

Anyone else had this conversation with Enterprise DBA's?

Jason

bshopp

Jason,

I will reach out to you offline to discuss further.

Brandon

ecornwell

Our DBA's expressed concerns as well. It looks like I'll be waiting a little bit to do my upgrade.

bshopp

Could you pass on to me their specific concerns. I sent some data offline to the previous poster, would you like me to send you that same info?

alazanowski

Our DBA told us that we will absolutely NOT enable CLR unless there is a detailed documentation of why solarwinds needs it and what it is doing with it. I will definitely trust him on this as he is co-authors on several renowned books on SQL Databases and he does not want to move forward with any upgrades until this is clearly described in some article.

If anyone has this, I would appreciate it being forwarded to me. Thanks!

r0berth1

I did the upgrade and so far, the only problem that i am having is my nested maps no longer show the correct status of my devices. any map that is more that 2 layers deep, show up as unknown. So i have to redesign my maps, which is a pain in the @$$.

berto

Did you backup your maps, reports, and custompollers directories prior to the upgrade and then reimport them in after the upgrade? Just curious.

Todd

AlbanyNYMike

Just tried my 9.5 upgrade, just got the message about needed CLR to be implemented, just got yelled at by our DBA unit.

Looks like we will not be upgrading to 9.5 and droppiong our support. A shame, as all SW had to do was give a nice long heads up that this was coming, and possible provide some documents as to why it is needed.

Our DB unit laughed when we had no documentation to support why CLR is needed.

Our NPM reports to a shared SQL and we dont have a chance of getting our DB unit to 1. boot the box, 2. install CLR.

Oh well,.. 9.1 SP5 does all we really need it to do, and we are fine with NCM 5.1.

Once SW went public in the stock market, I fear it is the end of a beautiful era for network engineers. How long till the fabulous NPM turns into the horrendous CiscoWorks.

aLTeReGo

I really don't understand what all the uproar is all about. I don't remember anyone clamoring for justification when Solarwinds required moving to .NET Framework 3.5.

Honestly I think most DBAs are afraid of things they don't know or simply don't understand. As CLR (which is a fantastic technology) becomes more commonly used by those other applications that are run on your shared DB servers this will all seem so trivial, and quite frankly overblown.

I don't want to get into a pissing contest over who's DBA wrote more books, or published more TechNet white papers, but I did my usual go around of speaking with the MS SQL Server development team, our DB consultants, as well as both of our outside security consultant companies, and though I find the technology interesting, nothing anyone had to say to me raised any major red flags that would have me immediately drop maintenance and start looking at competing products. Gee, if we did that every time a vendor implemented a change that we didn't like I can assure you that none of us would be running Microsoft products. That's for sure.

If this is such a Major concern I suggest you consider running another SQL instance on the same SQL server dedicated to NPM, or if that's not enough protection for you then run SQL in a VM. Microsoft's Virtual Server is free and SQL Server 2005 is MS approved to run under MS Virtual Server. That's just my $0.02.

So this entire thread isn't just one big crap all over Solarwinds, I'd like to take this opportunity to say how impressed I am with 9.5 and I eagerly await the next release! Great job guys. Keep up the good work.

reheindel

I completely agree with aLTeReG0 that we do all at times fear making changes to environments we don't understand, and I appreciate the documents from R0bert and others that detail about what is changing and how we can all feel warm and fuzzy about it.

Again, keep up the great work Solarwinds!

ecornwell

Well said aLTeReGo!

I know many people typically shy away from latest versions. I know most people wouldn't put the lastest version of IOS on their routers or even run some of the latest Cisco tech. I was at a traning class a little over a year ago and asked what the rest of the people thought about Cisco's VSS. Most of them said not to touch it for a few years to expect all kinds of bad things. We upgraded our cores about 6 months later and I suggested to go to VSS. Everything has been running great and we've had no problems! It was just fear because of a few bad experencies that made people want to shy away.

I think the same thing is happening with CLR. Almost everyone has said that Orion is pretty good but it would be better if it was faster. SW did something to make it faster now people are upset.

Overall, I think it is a good move. I haven't installed it yet as I'm leaving for vacation and don't want to do it right before hand. I will be upgrading soon though.

r0berth1

as i said in one of my earlier posts, there were some typos in one of the 9.5 tables. I beleave it was the resources table, the typos were as follows:

/Orion/NetPrefMon/Resources instead of /Orion/NetPerfMon/Resources

and the other typos in the same table were:

/Orion.NetPerfMon/Resources instead of /Orion/NetPerfMon/Resources.

Since mine are already corrected, Can someone for the SW staff either Verify this statement or correct it?

Dfarinsky

We have NPM/NetFlow and I just installed NCM. We want to upgrade to 9.5 for or the new map. I'm not familiar enough with SQL to know if CLR is already enabled. How can I tell and how do it get enabled? We are running Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Thanks!

bshopp

You can let the installer enable or enable yourself, instructions can be found here

r0berth1

I have done the upgrade and so far just a few quirks. But if i were you, I would wait until at least SP1 comes out. The new maps are not that much better yet.