SQL Server Monitor Tool

  • Hi all,

    I Planned to develop a SQL Server Monitor Tool .Is there any idea to give?This tool gonna be keep fetch details on multiple sql servers and poped to the users.Still i dont have a idea but i fixed the tool should be in Dot Net 2005.If the is simple its also good to perform.Please need help.

  • You're entering into a pretty crowded field. There are tons & tons of monitoring tools out there. The only advice I can give you is that you need a hook, something that no one else has thought of. If you're just capturing standard performance metrics, what sets you apart from SQL Sentry, Confio Ignite, Idera Diagnostic Manager, Microsoft Operations Manager, Quest Foglight, Red Gate SQL Prompt... and those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head. Wait until you do a google search on the topic.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • I agree with Grant.

    But if you are still inclined to develop the system, you can use SQL Profiler to Capture certain Queries based on events and conditions. Read more SQL Internals, Read more about building Graphsv(if your tool does not show me those beautiful graphs, i ain't gonna buy it) and build a better tool, that is not a resource hog, and do not test this against a prod server. 🙂

  • Good advice. Take a look at the SQL Server Dynamic Management Views. They're an amazing window into what's going on inside SQL Server. Most of the monitoring tools leverage them in some way.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Thank u all .I will try my best.In my work place we have Microsoft operations manager(SCOM) to monitor.But its irritating us because of popping lots of alerts and its takes huge memory of users machine.we cant follow that's y we planned to develop.can any one guide me to categorize only sensitive alerts like performance ,system etc.. the challenge is to incorporate the production servers in farms and club in to one server with low memory usage .

  • Thamizh (5/4/2010)


    Thank u all .I will try my best.In my work place we have Microsoft operations manager(SCOM) to monitor.But its irritating us because of popping lots of alerts and its takes huge memory of users machine.we cant follow that's y we planned to develop.can any one guide me to categorize only sensitive alerts like performance ,system etc.. the challenge is to incorporate the production servers in farms and club in to one server with low memory usage .

    Question: Everyone has been commenting as though you intend to go to market with a new product, the way i read this is that you just want to build an in-house monitoring tool.

    Which is it?

    If your not planning to develop (and then sell) a product, why do you not buy one? Idera DM is very good and is not too resource hungry.

    Otherwise if all you want is SQL stats, you can right an ssis to go across linked servers and bring back logs or run sp's to get out user, database, disk stats etc.

    Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave

  • Schadenfreude-Mei (5/5/2010)


    Thamizh (5/4/2010)


    Thank u all .I will try my best.In my work place we have Microsoft operations manager(SCOM) to monitor.But its irritating us because of popping lots of alerts and its takes huge memory of users machine.we cant follow that's y we planned to develop.can any one guide me to categorize only sensitive alerts like performance ,system etc.. the challenge is to incorporate the production servers in farms and club in to one server with low memory usage .

    Question: Everyone has been commenting as though you intend to go to market with a new product, the way i read this is that you just want to build an in-house monitoring tool.

    Which is it?

    If your not planning to develop (and then sell) a product, why do you not buy one? Idera DM is very good and is not too resource hungry.

    Otherwise if all you want is SQL stats, you can right an ssis to go across linked servers and bring back logs or run sp's to get out user, database, disk stats etc.

    That is true. I assumed, because you were talking right off about coding, that you wanted to build a comercial product. If you're just trying to build some internal monitoring tools, you should look at what's available for free from Microsoft, or simply look to leverage the same things through PowerShell or whatever coding language you like best.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Thamizh (5/4/2010)


    Thank u all .I will try my best.In my work place we have Microsoft operations manager(SCOM) to monitor.But its irritating us because of popping lots of alerts and its takes huge memory of users machine.we cant follow that's y we planned to develop.can any one guide me to categorize only sensitive alerts like performance ,system etc.. the challenge is to incorporate the production servers in farms and club in to one server with low memory usage .

    You may want to simply cut down the number and size of rules & monitors that are running in SCOM. We use it across our enterprise and haven't seen it hurting performance, but we're pretty careful about which things we enable and which we don't.

    We're hitting the same issues you are about the alerts. It's hard to tune it down to make it mostly signal and very little noise.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • I will consider this

  • Hey there,

    If you already have Ops Manager, you're going to have a very difficult time writing something that's better from scratch. If you want something that's very lightweight, consider turning off all the management packs you don't want. For SQL Servers, you should be fine running just the Windows Server and SQL MPs. Also, be sure your Ops Manager environment is patched up (SP1 is out I think) and that you have updated your management packs. Microsoft releases fixes and enhancements for the management packs two or three times per year - the SQL one was updated in November.

    Rather than writing a tool from scratch, consider turning off all the features of the SQL Management pack and then slowly read through each item and enable it if you think it's applicable. Each of the Management Packs comes with a Word doc that explains all of the settings. You will end up with a very customized monitoring environment that alerts only on errors YOU care about on YOUR servers that also happens to plug in to a worldclass Enterprise monitoring system. And you didn't even have to write the plumbing yourself.

    I don't mean to discourage you from writing your own tool - as a developer with a systems background I definitely feel the urge to do this from time to time. I just think it's really going to be tough for you to write something better than what you could get with the time investment it would take to really optimize an Ops Manager environment (assuming you have the access to do so).

  • Ok.

  • Ok

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