Huge frustration - Database watcher with two elastic pools

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Huge frustration - Database watcher with two elastic pools

bjorn.c.w

SSC Journeyman

Points: 77
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February 5, 2026 at 2:39 pm

#4730479

Think there's a reason why this is still in preview, but have someone manage to get this to work properly with two Elastic Pools on one Virtual SQL Server?
Regardless how I try to add the target, it always end up collection databases from the first Elastic Pool.
Dashboard would say number of databases equal to first EP, then under EP, it says two pools.
If I try to add or remove some targets, the whole database watcher goes down, and I sometimes have to drop all targets and create a new fresh datastore.
Feels like I'm going crazy here, since the Dashboard seems very random for each time I try to set it up.
Setup:
* One database watcher
* One Private Endpoint to Server
* Two Elastic Pool Targets, pointing to each dbwatcher01/02 database anchors for the pool
* Added all databases (also tried without this)
Permission for Identity:
{ "database": "Master", "roles": ["##MS_DatabaseConnector##","##MS_DefinitionReader##","##MS_ServerPerformanceStateReader##"] }

For each database:
"grantView": ["DATABASE STATE", "DEFINITION"]

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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Site Owners SSC Guru Points: 80411 More actions · Answer 1

Thanks for posting your issue and hopefully someone will answer soon.

This is an automated bump to increase visibility of your question.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 741285 More actions · Answer 2

No idea here, but I've reached out to a few friends. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

bjorn.c.w SSC Journeyman Points: 77 More actions · Answer 3

Thanks Steve. Also tried at reddit, and only reply was that it was rubbish.

And I'm also leaning towards that direction.

The few databases that got connected is getting flooded with badly designed queries in the query store and they're topping the resource usage.

One time, database watcher also did self destruct after several trial and error and using stop/start of the service.

My conclusion so far, is that it's not something i would recommend to use in a production environment.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 741285 More actions · Answer 4

I think it's good, and I've talkde with some of the devs, but it's a little incomplete. I'm not surprised that what you're trying to do doesn't work. I suspect (don't know) that the MS direction would be that you need two database watchers, which likely costs a little more than 1.

I think it was a good idea, but another one of those Microsoft ideas to build something without enough follow through to stick to the project. Since I work for Redgate, I'm not unhappy with that, but I feel for customers that invested in it and haven't gotten what they expected.

bjorn.c.w SSC Journeyman Points: 77 More actions · Answer 5

It doesn't make sense to have two database watchers on one virtual SQL server, just because you have two elastic pools.

Whole point would be to see all pools side by side in one dashboard.

My guess would be that the product is quite incomplete, and they threw it out in preview to see how it works and what not works.

For us, we ended up now reaching out to RG for a quote on their monitoring. Hopefully they can give me a nice quote after being an Data Saturday organizer in Oslo for 10 years , and they have been good sponsors 🙂