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Norwich
Posting Yak Master
158 Posts |
 Posted - 2006-04-24 : 07:34:32
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HiJust a quick question to find out what you guys use to monitor your servers. To monitor uptime, manage out of contorl processes, deadlocks and the rest of the horrible things our users don't like.I've recently discovered the magic of Idera Diagnostic Manager. Nice RegardsNThe revolution won't be televised! |
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jen
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
4110 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-24 : 07:53:17
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| a good control and change process with a dash of 'if you don't stop fooling around you'll get fired' kind of contract clause --------------------keeping it simple... |
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madhivanan
Premature Yak Congratulator
22864 Posts |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-24 : 15:30:50
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| For the whole Uptime thingie we use ServersAlive. (Does SQL, but also does Ping, Http, and so on)."deadlocks" we expect to get rid of during QA ...Kristen |
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Michael Valentine Jones
Yak DBA Kernel (pronounced Colonel)
7020 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-24 : 17:27:27
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I just use a low-tech approach for checking to see if SQL Server is running. I setup a job on a SQL Server that connects to all the other servers every five minutes to make sure SQL Server and SQL Server Agent are running. If it fails 3 times in a row, it sends a page.We have some higher tech tools around, but I don't really trust the people who are supposed to make them work. I got a notification from them a few months ago that one of our servers was down. It was a server that I had uninstalled and shutdown 5 months before.OSQL from the command shell works well for this. This is a sample piece of code to check to see if a server is up and the agent is running.declare @server sysnamedeclare @cmd nvarchar(4000)select @server = '(local)'select @cmd = 'osql -S'+@server+ ' -E -d master -Q "EXIT(select -1000-count(*) from '+ 'sysprocesses where program_name like ''SQLAgent%'')" 'declare @retcode intexec @retcode = master.dbo.xp_cmdshell @cmd , no_outputprint 'Server '+@server+' Status = '+ case when @retcode < -1000 then 'Server and Agent running' when @retcode = -1000 then 'Server running but Agent not running' else 'Cannot connect to server' end Results:Server (local) Status = Server and Agent running CODO ERGO SUM |
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Norwich
Posting Yak Master
158 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-25 : 07:16:12
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| SO none of you guys use a comprehensive tool that monitors the big 4 (Network, processor(s), Disk I/O, Memory), uptime and everything else?Anybody ever try to use Idera Diagnostic Manager?That's what I'm using and it gives me a comprehensive report of everything that's happening on the server. From oldest running transaction to number of batches processed. Another cool feature is the "dashboard", where you have a view all your servers from a single window.I know I sound like a sales man but I'm impressed with this productRegardsNThe revolution won't be televised! |
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jen
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
4110 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-25 : 07:52:36
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| we're going to implement it and i'm not totally impressed, i look into how secure the tool then the performance and 'impressive' stuffthere are security issues on the tool that strips off accountability if the access is done on the manager serveranother is the plain text for password protected backupsanother is lack of accountability for server settings/job changes or anything that is outside the user tablesanother is how the service account is used for all servers under the manager, so if you use one installation on 8 servers, let's say 4 are categorized differently and should not interact with the other 4, you get a window of 'insecurity', since the service account for that service will be used across all 8 servers with SA privilege.still, for systems that have not established anything yet, it is something amazing, but for those that have already created utilities for the areas you mentioned, it's just another software--------------------keeping it simple... |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-25 : 10:28:43
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| "for those that have already created utilities for the areas you mentioned"We monitor CPU from a SQL Server job, because we have to need to start denying new web sessions if the SQL box gets too busy. (Web box calls SQL to "log" a new session, and will get a "denied" return code if the SQL box is too busy; this allows existing customers to finish-up and leave-the-store, which in turn reduces CPU and reallows new customers to "enter" the store).We log this (and a bunch of other performance indicators) within SQL and then we can report on that as we see fit!)Kristen |
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rockmoose
SQL Natt Alfen
3279 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-25 : 13:17:27
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| We don't have tool for this, but do homegrown logging of IIS requests, Locking, SQL Server traces, CPU, Disk space, data growth, batch jobs and some application specific logging&tracing. Some email alerts from this data are set up as well.It has taken some work to set up, and no dashboard.What I have discovered is that it is often specifics that is needed, performance/errors per page / procedure / batch / (specific timeframe).For profiler traces atm we run 10 min traces every 2 hours, this gets to be quite a lot of data, and for our purposes a good enough statistical overview of what gets called and the overall performance.We have top 50 lists (reports) giving us the <bad> procs that need to be tuned, and <bad> pages that are slow / generate errors.One really good thing about saving profiler traces is that it is very easy to get good test-cases for tuning, by just using the actual TextData that was sent to the DB and behaved badly.A really good tool with visuals would of course be cool, our tool of choice is still QA.rockmoose |
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rockmoose
SQL Natt Alfen
3279 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-25 : 13:41:18
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| for $1295 per instance!, it better be cool The main argument I have against many tools, is that quite often one needs to go outside the box in order to get all the functionality that you need.Which means you end up writing things yourself anyway.But to go from 0% to 70% (of something) by just getting a tool, seems a good deal._________________________________________________________If you have the data, if you know sql, the answer is nearrockmoose |
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derrickleggett
Pointy Haired Yak DBA
4184 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-26 : 01:01:02
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| We wrote our own tracing and collection tool like rockmoose. It works great. I would look at the Quest suite if you are really considering buying one. They have some nice tools.MeanOldDBAderrickleggett@hotmail.comWhen life gives you a lemon, fire the DBA. |
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rockmoose
SQL Natt Alfen
3279 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-26 : 13:35:36
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quote:
Originally posted by derrickleggett
We wrote our own tracing and collection tool like rockmoose. It works great. I would look at the Quest suite if you are really considering buying one. They have some nice tools.
Specially for Oracle, Toad is invaluable How is the latest Toad for Sql Server?rockmoose |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2006-04-26 : 15:42:03
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| "Toad [Oracle] is invaluable"That's not much different to QA is it? Or are my Oracle <Spit!> clients fobbing me off with some old knackered version? And why are my clients, having spent gazzilion$ on Oracle licenses, using a freebie tool like Toad? - Is there nothing suitable in Oracle's own stable?Sorry, long time since I've used Oracle ... errmmm ... "In anger", so a bit out of touch.Kristen |
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SQL Utilities