Useful SQL 2008 monitoring

branfarm

Hi there,

I have two SQL 2008 clusters that I'm currently monitoring with APM's built-in 'SQL Server 2008 Database' and 'SQL Server Query' templates.  Can anyone vouch for the accuracy and/or relevance of these templates.   

Along the same lines, can anyone share what they are doing to monitor their SQL installations, and how useful it's been?

 

Thanks,

 

Brandon

jiri.tomek

Hello branfarm,
there is no simple answer how to monitor SQL server. It depends on many factors. Why donumber  you want to monitor SQL server? Do you need performance monitor, status monitor, overal usage monitor? There are many performance counters for SQL server 2008 and you can monitor virtually anything you can imagine.

For example counters in "SQLServer:General Statistics" contain number of transactions, temporary tables counts, number of connections. SQLServer:Locks contains information about locking, you can see if there are too many locks which can lead to performance decrease. SQLServer:Databases contains data about databases sizes etc. If you don't know what data you want to get, there is no simple answer for you.

Default SQL Server 2008 Database template serves to monitor overall server status. It should tell you if server is running and accessible and if it is nor overloaded (Buffer manager reads/writes). If you need more detailed data, you have to create your own template that fits your needs.