How do I know if a server has a good connection...

  • Hi, I would like to know how or who, well, let me start from the beginning.

    I am programming in VB with SQL, we create DB and SP on test and QA environment, but when we go to production the DBA is the one who does the pass. We use linked servers and on some procedures that are kind of long (about 12 minutes a big sp, running from the vb) sometimes the connection breaks, some of the 4 servers that we use to bring data kind of fails or I don´t know what happens. Well my question is do I have to make a sp or something in sql that monitorates the other servers? or does the DBA has to do it?, and how does it can be made, does SQL has something special for this?

    Another question, how good or bad is that we programmers make jobs or vb application that keep running and running on the servers?,

    Thanks a lot, I hope you understand my question.

    😀

    Ana


    Ana

  • I have connections that run from my machine sometimes overnight and they do not break. I suspect you have some network issue here.

    The short answer is the DBA sets up a linked server and you query that. The servers manage the connections them selves and there is nothing you can do to help or hurt this.

    Steve Jones

    steve@dkranch.net

  • Thanks Steve for your quick answear.

    What do I do o r make to see if it is network issue?, what can I recommend them to do?

    Yes I work like that with the linked servers, I know that the "problem" is on the DBAs´ department, but unfortunally I have a couple of users that don´t understand that and they said that it is programmers problem, what do I do or say or prove to them that there is nothing we can do, or search for so I have some investigation about this.

    About the connections, is that in the deparment there is a personas that like to do vb applications that runs every day and every night on the servers, that just reads a tables and sometimes change a value, the application es just an EXE with out a form, they say that is kind of resident in memory, but I don´t know how good this is, they started making this like patches (I don´t know if that is the word) instead of making again a procedure, what do you think about this?

    Ana


    Ana

  • Your best bet is to get a packet sniffer on the box to monitor the packets and see if anything specific happens. Also can use netmon but I have not done this so not sure how exactly. You might also try using PerfMon to monitor network packets to see if a lot of losses could be too many colisions on the netowkr causing it to drop or a timeout as you say these are big (try a small quick one to see what happens). Also do you get any specific messages back (they might be in the EventViewer logs on the server).

    "Don't roll your eyes at me. I will tape them in place." (Teacher on Boston Public)

  • I agree with Antares. A packet sniffer will help. You could also open a QA or ISQL session from the server and see if it stays open for an hour, couple, etc. You could easily write a loop to run a query, then do a waitfor() until some time and re-run. Send some message to be sure the connection is open. This would also help prove there is some network issue.

    Having an EXE run contantly isn't a bad thing. That's what a service does (for the most part). You want to be sure it's not leaking memory and stable, but it there's no rule to say don't do it. I have something similar, but I schedule it to run every hour because it doesn't need to run continuously.

    Steve Jones

    steve@dkranch.net

  • Thanks Antares for the tip, I will find out more about thee things you are telling me.

    About the error is kind of Network error, call your administrator, or something like that.

    Ana


    Ana

  • Thanks Steve, I try to make that and see what happens.

    how many "services" can be running on the server?

    Guys you´ve been great, I am beginning with this and sometimes I get kind of histeric 😀

    Ana


    Ana

  • no limit I am aware of for services

    Steve Jones

    steve@dkranch.net

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