An In-Depth Examination of Red Gate SQL Monitor

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An In-Depth Examination of Red Gate SQL Monitor

Adam Machanic

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February 14, 2011 at 12:01 am

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item An In-Depth Examination of Red Gate SQL Monitor
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Adam Machanic
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Michael Lysons SSCertifiable Points: 6492 More actions · Answer 1

Nice one, Adam. I'm just getting round to using SQL Monitor after winning a copy from Red Gate. My colleagues still find it a bit freaky when I say stuff like, "How's that long running query working out for you?" - I don't think they like the Big Brother of it all 😀

george sibbald SSC Guru Points: 104210 More actions · Answer 2

does it focus down on individual queries as the cause of high resource usage, show query plans, suggest possible improvements?

You say servers must be defined by physical name which is obviously an issue with clusters, but the SSC servers being monitored are clustered? Is this a case then of monitoring all the nodes in the cluster but having to know which node is currently active?

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Adam Machanic SSCoach Points: 15370 More actions · Answer 3

george sibbald (2/14/2011)
does it focus down on individual queries as the cause of high resource usage, show query plans, suggest possible improvements?

No. It's more of a server-wide picture, with occasional deeper insight when certain events hit. As I mentioned in the article, I'm very much looking forward to additional enhancements.

You say servers must be defined by physical name which is obviously an issue with clusters, but the SSC servers being monitored are clustered? Is this a case then of monitoring all the nodes in the cluster but having to know which node is currently active?

I don't know if the SSC servers are clustered or not. Yes, you can put both physical names in, but AFAIK the tool doesn't tell you which node is active.

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Adam Machanic
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jts2013 Hall of Fame Points: 3226 More actions · Answer 4

I am just starting to set up SQL Monitor to monitor a clustered server, so I'll see if I get the same problems you had with registering the server.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736291 More actions · Answer 5

Adam Machanic (2/14/2011)
You say servers must be defined by physical name which is obviously an issue with clusters, but the SSC servers being monitored are clustered? Is this a case then of monitoring all the nodes in the cluster but having to know which node is currently active?
I don't know if the SSC servers are clustered or not. Yes, you can put both physical names in, but AFAIK the tool doesn't tell you which node is active.

Yes, the SSC servers are clustered. No idea which one is active as of now, but I'll ask if the tool shows this.

Brad McGehee SSCertifiable Points: 5282 More actions · Answer 6

The SSC cluster is an active/active cluster, and SQL Monitor is monitoring both of them with ease. Node 1 runs the SSC databases, and node 2 runs the Simple-Talk databases.

Brad M. McGehee
DBA

Adam Machanic SSCoach Points: 15370 More actions · Answer 7

bradmcgehee@hotmail.com (2/14/2011)
The SSC cluster is an active/active cluster, and SQL Monitor is monitoring both of them with ease. Node 1 runs the SSC databases, and node 2 runs the Simple-Talk databases.

Makes sense. So the situation described in the article only applies to active/passive clusters.

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Adam Machanic
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george sibbald SSC Guru Points: 104210 More actions · Answer 8

well if you are pointing at physical server names you still need to know which node is supporting which instances or you might wonder why CPU usage just fell through the floor 🙂

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Ian D-387508 SSC Veteran Points: 294 More actions · Answer 9

How would you compare SQL Monitor to SQL Sentry? The one thing I do not like about SQL Sentry is that it is not web based.

priya.sinha SSC-Addicted Points: 497 More actions · Answer 10

george sibbald (2/14/2011)
well if you are pointing at physical server names you still need to know which node is supporting which instances or you might wonder why CPU usage just fell through the floor 🙂

Hi,

This information is available under Overviews in SQL Monitor. For a cluster, there are various Overviews available at virtual cluster, nodes and sql instance level. If you look at view which is available at the virtual cluster level, you should be able to see the list of all the resoures and the node which is currently supporting it. This is copied for SQL Monitor UI:

Name StatusActive node Resource group Resource type

Cluster Disk 1Online sqlcluster2 Cluster Group Physical Disk

SQL Server Onlinesqlcluster1 SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER)SQL Server

Thanks,

Priya

george sibbald SSC Guru Points: 104210 More actions · Answer 11

thanks

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Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736291 More actions · Answer 12

SQL Sentry's Performance Advisor is really a performance tuning tool, not really a monitoring tool. They perform separate functions.

ammarany Grasshopper Points: 21 More actions · Answer 13

A very well briefly written post, with lots of useful information.

tnx

Extensive server monitoring software by Servers Alive, high performance system and network monitoring software info: http://www.woodstone.nu/salive