Monitoring Azure SQL DB

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Monitoring Azure SQL DB

ImYourDBA

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July 3, 2017 at 9:23 am

#327030

Does anyone have a good solution for monitoring Azure SQL DB databases? There are all kinds of good monitoring and analytics tools available for on premise servers/databases, but have yet to find one for the Azure connections.
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SteveHaselschwerdt SSC Veteran Points: 295 More actions · Answer 1

A decent place to start is in the Azure portal itself. You can see some of the basic stats there as well as their Azure SQL-specific unit of performance measurement, DTU(Database Throughput Unit). You can set those stats to alert when they breach a certain percentage. Also, if you turn the query store on, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-operate-query-store, you can get insights into missing indexes or poor performing queries. It's definitely not the most thorough of monitors, but it's been improving a ton over the years. I hope that helps.

ImYourDBA SSCertifiable Points: 5654 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for responding. Yeah, those are helpful to a point. I did some searching and found a cloud product called CloudMonix in the Marketplace that integrates into your Azure Portal subscription and seems to do a pretty good job of monitoring and alerting on the Azure SQL databases with a pretty low amount of configuration. And the cost is extremely competitive to the typically cost of on premise monitoring tools.

Owner & Principal SQL Server Consultant
Im Your DBA, Inc.
https://www.imyourdba.com/

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398909 More actions · Answer 3

Mostly, I stick to the metrics supplied by the portal along with monitoring wait stats within the database (sys.dm_db_wait_stats) and using extended events to capture query metrics when needed. The nature of Azure itself, the constant change, etc., makes using external monitoring much more difficult. However, you might take a look at SentryOne. They have some Azure SQL Database monitoring built into their products.

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ImYourDBA SSCertifiable Points: 5654 More actions · Answer 4

Grant Fritchey - Thursday, July 6, 2017 7:35 AM
Mostly, I stick to the metrics supplied by the portal along with monitoring wait stats within the database (sys.dm_db_wait_stats) and using extended events to capture query metrics when needed. The nature of Azure itself, the constant change, etc., makes using external monitoring much more difficult. However, you might take a look at SentryOne. They have some Azure SQL Database monitoring built into their products.

Thank you Grant, I will check it out.

Owner & Principal SQL Server Consultant
Im Your DBA, Inc.
https://www.imyourdba.com/