Licensing and activating SQL Monitor

SQL Monitor requires a license for each monitored host machine (including virtual machines), regardless of how many SQL Server instances are running on the machine. If you are managing clusters, a separate license is required for each node in the cluster.

Using the trial version of SQL Monitor

How long before my trial expires?

If you're currently using an evaluation version of SQL Monitor, the number of days remaining before your trial expires is displayed in the top right corner of the page:

TrialExpiry

What happens when my trial period expires?

Under special circumstances, Red Gate Sales may be able to extend your trial period. The trial license can only be extended once: if your extended trial has expired, contact Red Gate support.

Once your trial has expired, SQL Monitor stops collecting data for your monitored servers and all unlicensed machines are removed from the Overview pages. Their status is changed to Unlicensed on the Monitored servers page. Click Contact sales to send an email to Red Gate, or Buy online to access the website.

Licensing your servers

Go to the Licensing page by doing one of the following:

Click on the Enter serial number link in the top right corner of the page:

EnterSerialNumber

Go to the Configuration tab and under Licensing, select Licensing:

ConfigLicensing

Entering serial numbers

When you purchase SQL Monitor, the Sales team will send you an email containing the serial number(s) to activate your licenses. To access your serial numbers at any time, login to the Red Gate website and follow the instructions.

Paste a serial number into the Enter serial number text box and click Activate.

AddSerialNumber

When a successful activation has been confirmed, details are displayed in the My serial numbers table:

SerialNumbers

If the serial number cannot be activated, a message is displayed explaining the nature of the problem. You may need to contact Red Gate for further assistance.

Allocating licenses

SQL Monitor detects the number of servers currently being monitored and allocates available licenses to them automatically. These are displayed in the Licensed servers list. If during your evaluation you were monitoring more servers than you purchased licenses for, or you subsequently add more servers to monitor than you have licenses available, the servers added most recently will not be allocated licenses. These are displayed in the Unlicensed servers list. Unlicensed servers are not removed from the Monitored Servers list, but they will not be monitored and alerts cannot be raised on them.

You can change which servers have licenses allocated to them using the < License and Unlicense > buttons to move selected servers from one list to the other.

In the example below, five licenses have been purchased and allocated to the five servers currently being monitored. There are no spare licenses available.

AllocateLicenses

Deactivating a serial number

You may need to deactivate a serial number if:

You are moving the Base Monitor service to a different machine
You are evaluating a new version of SQL Monitor, and your existing serial number is for fewer servers that you want to monitor in trial mode; deactivating the serial number in this case will return you to trial mode (assuming you are within the evaluation period).
Red Gate sales or support have sent you a different serial number to use

To deactivate a serial number

Select the serial number in the list and click Deactivate.

SQL Monitor contacts the Red Gate licensing server, and the serial number is removed from the list:

DeactivationSuccessful

If there is a problem deactivating, a message is displayed explaining the nature of the problem. You may need to contact Red Gate for further assistance.

What happens when I deactivate a serial number?

The relevant number of servers are automatically moved from Licensed servers to Unlicensed servers. For example, if your serial number was for 10 licenses, then 10 servers will be unlicensed.

If you have licensed your servers using several serial numbers, you may have more licensed servers than are being removed. In this case, SQL Monitor removes the oldest servers first (those that were added to SQL Monitor first).

If all your servers are now unlicensed, SQL Monitor displays a warning banner: