SQL Monitor

Latest version: 3.2

SQL Monitor

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Release notes - version 3.2.0.xxx

Version 3.2.0.219 – 7 August, 2012

New feature:

SQL Monitor metrics website launched: Red Gate has brought together a range of quality metrics for you to use in SQL Monitor. The sqlmonitormetrics.red-gate.com website lets you:

  • find the metrics you’re interested in by browsing categories, or searching for keywords or authors that include Grant Fritchey and Brad McGehee
  • discover new and useful ways to monitor your SQL Servers and broaden your monitoring range
  • automatically install a metric in your version of SQL Monitor with a single click
  • rate existing metrics, or share your own metrics with other SQL Monitor users

Bug fixes:

  • SRP-2790: Analysis page - sort the databases by name rather than ID
  • SRP-6952: Long-running query fragment does not persist past alert end
  • SRP-6528: Changes to custom metrics aren't immediately reflected on the custom metrics list
  • SRP-6875: Analysis - Total size, Data size, Log size not working correctly with several of the pre-configured time range options
  • SRP-6858: Time ranges in the Alert Inbox break when browser back/forward buttons are used
  • SRP-6857: Custom alert threshold descriptions are contradictory for positive alert directions
  • SRP-6969: Web page expiring when edited a custom metric via link from collection error alert
  • SRP-6859: Group Overview alerts banner links to global Alert Inbox
  • SRP-6591: Overviews pages show nonsensical data for Instances' memory usage, sometimes link to the wrong Analysis page

Known issues:

  • IIS path change: If you are using SQL Monitor with IIS, the path containing your website files will have changed and you will need to reconfigure your website settings. The new path is displayed during the installation.
  • Side by side installs: It is not possible to run SQL Monitor 3.0 side by side with earlier versions.
  • SRP-1443: An internal error occurs if the database name contains a non-Latin character.
  • SRP-6122: Database size metric returns zero for instance during restore.
  • SRP-4106: Foreign Key conflict can cause database data collection to halt requiring a restart.
  • SRP-3222: Issue making WMI calls despite changing authentication level to Pkt_Privacy.

Version 3.1.0.125 – 24 May, 2012

New features:

  • Navigate through Alert details: On the Alert details page, you no longer have to go back to the Alert Inbox and select another alert to open it. The page now contains navigation buttons so you can quickly click through older and newer alerts.
  • Persistent filtering: Filters in the Alert Inbox now persist, so you can navigate away from the page and return to it without losing your previous filtering options.
  • Additional time ranges for analysis: The Time range drop-down list on the Analysis page contains two new fixed time ranges: last 6 hours and today.

Bug fixes:

  • SRP-6424: IE7 issue entering text when watermark is present
  • SRP-6683: Error clicking on Top 10 queries whilst in IE7 or IE8
  • SRP-6704: Custom alert triggering not respecting the 'threshold passed for x minutes' setting

Version 3.0.0.1593 – 8 May, 2012

This release contains fixes for the following issues:

  • SRP-4797/SRP-5031: Database appearing offline or SQL Monitor collection failing.
  • SRP-4106: Monitoring fails but is solved by restarting the Base Monitor.

Version 3.0.0.1575 – 3 April, 2012

This release contains fixes for the following issues:

  • SRP-6380: Alert settings email override settings not working.
  • SRP-6398: Cannot edit custom metrics on some installations.

Version 3.0.0.1573 – 22 March, 2012

Upgrading to SQL Monitor 3.0

SQL Monitor 3.0 is a major upgrade from SQL Monitor 2.3. If your current license includes a valid support and upgrades package for SQL Monitor 2.x, the same license serial number will automatically activate SQL Monitor 3.0.

If your v2.x license does not include support and upgrades, SQL Monitor will upgrade to a 14-day trial of v3.0. You cannot roll back to the previous 2.x version, so we recommend that you install a trial version of v3.0 on a separate machine. For more information, see Upgrading to a later version of SQL Monitor.

New Features:

  • Custom metrics: SQL Monitor collects a standard set of metrics from every monitored object. Custom metrics allow you to use your own T-SQL queries to collect metric values that aren't currently collected by default. They can also be used to collect application-specific information. Once collected, you can analyze and alert on this data.
  • Example custom metrics: To get you started with custom metrics, we have provided examples that include validated T-SQL queries so you don't have to write your own scripts. See http://www.red-gate.com/sqlmonitorexamplecustommetrics.
  • User roles: Administrators can now control user access to certain features in SQL Monitor. There are three user roles available; Administrator, Standard and Read-only. Each role is activated by creating a single password and then sharing it with relevant users. The following restrictions apply:
    • Administrators have unrestricted access and can configure every feature in SQL Monitor.
    • Standard users can manage and configure alerts, but cannot configure custom metrics, custom alerts or alert email settings. They can view most pages except the Manage user roles, Licensing and Base Monitor connection pages.
    • Read-only users cannot make any configuration changes, but they can view most of the pages in SQL Monitor except the Manage user roles, Licensing and Base Monitor connection pages.
  • SQL 2012 / Denali support: You can monitor SQL Server 2012 servers within SQL Monitor.
  • Analysis graph improvements: Graphs will no longer interpolate the data where there are significant gaps, so you can see more clearly whetherdata collection issues exist.
  • Feature usage reporting: This feature (disabled by default) helps Red Gate understand how you are using SQL Monitor. It reports how often individual features are used, allowing future development work to be prioritized. You will be asked during the installation if you wish to enable feature usage reporting. For more information, see: http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet-development/smartassembly/features/feature-usage-reporting-data-collected.
  • Known Issues:

    • IIS path change: If you are using SQL Monitor with IIS, the path containing your website files will have changed and you will need to reconfigure your website settings. The new path is displayed during the installation.
    • Side by side installs: It is not possible to run SQL Monitor 3.0 side by side with earlier versions.
    • SRP-1443: An internal error occurs if the database name contains a non-latin character.
    • SRP-6122: Database size metric returns zero for instance during restore.
    • SRP-4106: Monitoring fails but is solved by restarting the Base Monitor.
    • SRP-3222: Issue making WMI calls despite changing authentication level to Pkt_Privacy.

    Version 2.3 – 26 May, 2011

    New Features:

    • Top 10 expensive queries – the 10 queries that use the most resource based on Execution Count, Duration, CPU Time, Physical Reads, Logical Reads and Logical Writes are now displayed on the SQL Server Instance and Database overview pages. This data is also available in the Alert Details page for SQL Server alerts.
    • Data purging – SQL Monitor now supports explicit purge options for high volume data channels. Note: Purge options that were customized in earlier versions will be translated accordingly. You should review your purge settings after upgrade.
    • Analysis page – The Analysis page now supports high resolution graphs and can plot a maximum of 500 data points.
    • Performance improvements have been made to the Base Monitor and UI.
    • SQL Monitor now works with PagerDuty.
    • Emails for Job duration unusual and Job failure alerts now contain job name.
    • Monitoring error (host machine data collection) and Monitoring error (SQL Server data collection) alerts now have a two minute time tolerance before they are raised.
    • Long running query alert now contains database name and query duration.
    • Behavior change for Job duration unusual alert. It now validates the “Ignore less than“ value against the current run job duration instead of the base line.

    Bug Fixes:

    • SRP-3645: Monitoring error (host machine data collection) and Monitoring error (SQL Server data collection) alerts are too sensitive.
    • SRP-3614: Cannot set a SQL connection port greater than 32767.
    • SRP-3483: Processor utilization alert can be raised for disabled alert levels.
    • SRP-2905: Include query duration for Long running query alert.
    • SRP-3688: Analysis graph plots data but not the lines when the custom time range goes further back than the data available..
    • SRP-3036: Trace statements in the SQL Processes / Profiler trace tab are not chronologically ordered.
    • SRP-2969: Trace information in 2.2 less than 1.3.
    • SRP-3090: Offline alerts: include seconds on alert timings.
    • SRP-2472: Job failed and Job duration unusual alert email does not contain job name.
    • SRP-2924: Allow more than 100 percent for job duration unusual configuration.
    • SRP-3399: Blocked process and Long running query alert pages do not display database name.
    • SRP-3586: Log backup overdue alert is being raised wrongly after maintenance window.
    • SRP-1294:The list of SQL processes in an alert does not include the process which caused the alert.

    Known Issues:

    • SRP-495: If the Base Monitor loses its connection to the SQL Monitor Data Repository then you may see the following error, “System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException was thrown by method Query on service DataPresenterService: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding”.
    • SRP-1443: An internal error occurs if the database name contains a non-latin character.
    • SRP-2167: A user will see a “script stack space quota is exhausted” JavaScript error on Firefox when there is a lot of performance data in an alert details page. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2310: “Back in time” can sometime crash with an error when using IE 7. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2702: Long running query process ID not appearing in the SQL Processes/Trace tab.

    Version 2.2 – 16 February, 2011

    New Features:

    • Maintenance window - you can now set maintenance windows to temporarily suspend alerting during set periods.
    • Four new alerts - you will now receive alerts when connection issues occur.
    • Machine offline and SQL Server instance offline alerts have been renamed Machine unreachable and SQL Server instance unreachable respectively.

    Bug Fixes:

    • SRP-2134: The Fragmented index alert is broken.
    • SRP-2927: Alert descriptions for Backup overdue, Log backup overdue and Integrity check overdue alerts need changing.
    • SRP-3135/ SRP-3136: The time displayed in the Occurrences tab of the Alert details page is out by 12 hours or is in the wrong format.
    • SRP-3018: Purge behavior does not work as expected; a backlog of data due to be purged builds up, and attempts to purge the backlog affects performance. To fix this, SQL Monitor has increased its usage of tempdb, so you may see tempdb grow by up to half the size of your Data Repository database. Once the backlog of data has been purged successfully and your SQL Server service has been restarted, tempdb size will revert back to normal.
    • SRP-3140: The Disk used alert description is not entirely accurate.
    • SRP-3090: Offline alerts: include seconds on alert timings.
    • SRP-2924: Allow a threshold of more than 100% for the Job duration unusual alert configuration.
    • SRP-2202/ SRP-1769: The availability of button in the Alert Inbox should not be determined by the visible page.
    • SRP-1137: Enable sorting of the SQL Process by ID to make it easier to find a particular process.
    • SRP-3243: On the Alert details page, trace data is retrieved only when users click a specific SQL process.

    Known Issues:

    • SRP-495: If the Base Monitor loses its connection to the SQL Monitor Data Repository then you may see the following error, “System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException was thrown by method Query on service DataPresenterService: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding”.
    • SRP-1443: An internal error occurs if the database name contains a non-latin character.
    • SRP-2167: A user will see a “script stack space quota is exhausted” JavaScript error on Firefox when there is a lot of performance data in an alert details page. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2310: “Back in time” can sometime crash with an error when using IE 7. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2702: Long running query process ID not appearing in the SQL Processes/Trace tab.

    Version 2.1 – 10 December, 2010

    New Features:

    • License deactivation is now supported.
    • Long running query alert now supports excluding by process name.
    • Improvements to email format.
    • Improvement to Job duration unusual alert.
    • Performance improvement when trace in running.
    • Long running query: Regex on new lines are treated as distinct new regex rather than a single regex with a new line in it.

    Bug Fixes:

    • SRP-2126/ SRP-2522: Database creation fails during installation and displays the following error message, “invalid sequential schema version”. This can happen when there are user objects in the model database.
    • SRP-1891: The breadcrumbs for any job-specific alert configuration, e.g., “Job failed” alert, contain the name of the instance twice.
    • SRP-753/ SRP-425: Sometime XSP webserver crashes with socket exception.
    • SRP-2547: Trace not working as expected for SQL Server 2000.
    • SRP-2624: “Database **** cannot be opened. It is in the middle of a restore.” was wrongly categorized as an authentication error.
    • SRP-2489: Analysis page not plotting Total Size, Data Size and Log Size graphs.
    • SRP-2398: Invalid default SQL Server Log path causes connection failure.
    • SRP-2475: TypeAccessException thrown when viewing alert inbox.
    • SRP-2604: Installer fails to start website service on French Windows XP & 2003 when on a work group.
    • SRP-2512: SQL fragment truncated for Long running query, Blocked process, Deadlock and SQL Server error log entry alert.

    Known Issues:

    • SRP-495: If the Base Monitor loses its connection to the SQL Monitor Data Repository then you may see the following error, “System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException was thrown by method Query on service DataPresenterService: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding”.
    • SRP-1443: An internal error occurs if the database name contains a non-latin character.
    • SRP-2167: A user will see a “script stack space quota is exhausted” JavaScript error on Firefox when there is a lot of performance data in an alert details page. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2310: “Back in time” can sometime crash with an error when using IE 7. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • SRP-2702: Long running query process ID not appearing in the SQL Processes/Trace tab.
    • SRP-2735: The Fragmented index alert is broken in build 2.1.0.380. To obtain a patch to fix this problem, contact Red Gate support.

    Version 2.0 – 4 November, 2010

    Known Issues:

    • If the Base Monitor loses its connection to the SQL Monitor Data Repository then you may see the following error, “System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException was thrown by method Query on service DataPresenterService: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding”.
    • A user will see a “script stack space quota is exhausted” JavaScript error on Firefox when there is a lot of performance data in an alert details page. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.
    • Database creation fails during installation and displays the following error message, “invalid sequential schema version”. This can happen when there is a user object in the model database.
    • The breadcrumbs for any job-specific alert configuration, e.g.  ”Job failed” alert, contain the name of the instance twice.
    • “Back in time” can sometime crash with an error when using IE 7. Use an alternative browser to view SQL Monitor.

    Previous versions of this product were released as SQL Response. See version 1.xx SQL Response release notes.

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