Monitoring SQL Server Performance: What’s Required?

A monitoring tool must provide us with an understanding of the often-complex performance patterns that databases exhibit when under load, so that we can predict how they will cope with expansion or increase in scale. It must also helps us spot the symptoms of stress and act before they become problems that affect the service, and understand better what was happening within a database when an intermittent problem started. Read more

Monitoring the Application with SQL Monitor: Website Activity

Using a PowerShell script that collects log data from a web server, plus a SQL Monitor custom metric, Phil Factor offers a way to check for suspicious website errors and unusual patterns of activity, right alongside your database monitoring. Read more

The Changing Role of SQL Server Monitoring

Grant Fritchey explains how a modern monitoring tool must adapt, as our SQL Server databases grow in number and size, and migrate onto new cloud-based, containerized or virtual machine-based SQL Servers. Read more

Troubleshooting Blocking in SQL Server using SQL Monitor

SQL Monitor tells us immediately when significant blocking occurs, and where, during busy periods, and provides the full blocking chain, in an easy-to-digest graphical format, so we can diagnose and resolve the blocking quickly. Read more

Custom Metrics for Detecting Problems with Ad-hoc Queries

Overuse of ad-hoc queries by applications is a common source of SQL Server performance problems. The symptoms include high CPU and memory pressure. Phil Factor offers a simple custom metric to monitor the percentage of ad-hoc queries being executed on a database, and shows how SQL Monitor can detect when the problem is happening, and show you the queries that are affecting the server. Read more

Using SQL Monitor to Detect Problems on Databases that use Snapshot-based Transaction Isolation

Use of the read committed snapshot isolation level is often an effective way to alleviate blocking problems in SQL Server, without needing to rewrite the application. However, it can sometimes lead to tempdb contention. This article offers a small-scale solution (not suitable for use on large tables) to detect cases when tempdb contention is related to use of RCSI. Read more

Monitoring and Troubleshooting Deadlocks with Redgate Monitor

This article explains what SQL Server deadlocks are, why they occur, why they require immediate investigation, and the diagnostic data required to troubleshoot them. It then demonstrates an "Update Order" deadlock condition and shows how to find the cause quickly, in Redgate Monitor, using the Extended Events deadlock graph provided by the deadlock alert. Read more

Investigating problems with ad-hoc queries using SQL Monitor

Phil Factor demonstrates the performance problems that overuse of ad-hoc queries can cause and then how SQL Monitor can warn us when they are the cause of these problems on your SQL Servers, using built-in metrics such as SQL Compilations/sec metric and Batch Requests/sec. Read more

How to monitor the impact of patching on SQL Server performance

This article uses the Spectre/Meltdown bugs as means to demonstrate how you can use a tool like SQL Monitor to assess the impact of patching on the throughput and performance of your SQL Servers. Read more

SQL Monitor Quick Tip: Using the SQL static code analysis performance rules

This quick tip illustrates SQL Monitor's built-in set of Performance Rules for static code analysis. These rules are designed to highlight SQL syntax that could potential cause performance problems, and so indicate ways to improve the overall quality and performance of the workload, over time. Read more

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