Managing database security, compliance, and performance across a complex estate is no easy task. Redgate Monitor Enterprise brings all the data you need into one place. This article explores how it helps DBAs track user permissions, ensure configuration compliance, create custom reports, and implement resilient high-availability monitoring. Read more
Redgate Monitor now offers improved security for monitoring PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS and Aurora DB clusters, as well as for retrieving enhanced metrics from any RDS instance. Read more
Phil Factor demonstrates how to identify objects in a database that are not being used. The technique uses Extended Events to detect acquisition of Intent locks, and so determine which databases are active or apparently 'dormant', and then drills down to investigate on which tables data has been modified recently, and which views and stored procedures have been run. Read more
How well do the SQL Server licenses you own match up with what you need for your current use? William Durkin explains how to use SQL Monitor to find out. Read more
You need to make sure that nobody tampers with your production databases, or really any databases outside Development. Even if you weren't of a nervous disposition, you'd want to know if a database was stopped or removed. You'd also be intrigued by the sudden unrehearsed addition of a database to a production server. Read more
The ease with which new cloud-based, containerized or virtual machine-based SQL Servers can be provisioned means that estates are growing quickly, and across diverse platforms. This presents some challenges. For example, when working with our customers, we hear frequently that, as their estates grow, it becomes harder and more time-consuming to control and refine the Read more
Provides a PowerShell monitoring script for errors, warnings and critical events on the Windows server hosting your SQL Server instance, including the failed server login attempts that would accompany a brute-force password attack. Read more
If we know how a database is likely to be attacked, we can arrange our lines of defense, and install the monitors required to detect any attempts. However, some types of attack are difficult to imagine, so we also need our monitoring tool to be adaptable, so that it can collect a more diffuse collection of metrics, and then help us determine the reason for any sudden change in the patterns of access . Read more
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
If a table runs out of IDENTITY values then it, and any dependent services and applications, will be "read-only" until the problem is fixed. Steve Jones explains how to set up a custom monitor to detect and prevent such problems. Read more
Phil Factor offers a clever way to report on a SQL Server intrusion, with a query that shows a full narrative description of all the security-related changes that have been detected by a set of SQL Monitor custom metrics. Read more
The best way to learn how to protect your databases from SQL Injection is to to see it in action and confront its consequences. This article tells the story of an attack on a vulnerable SQL Server REST interface, explaining how the attack unfolds, the mistakes that made it possible, and SQL Monitor's role as the 'canary in the mine'. Read more
Phil Factor uses the default trace and a SQL Monitor custom metric to alert you to unauthorized changes in security membership or permissions in any of your monitored databases. Read more
Phil Factor uses Extended Events and a SQL Monitor custom metric to detect when the metadata of a database has 'drifted', meaning that a database object has been created, deleted or modified outside of the official change management process. Read more
If someone makes unauthorized changes to SQL Server configuration settings, it could compromise the availability, performance or security of your servers. Using using Extended Events, and a custom metric, in SQL Monitor, Phil Factor offers a way to get an immediate notification of such changes, and investigate their cause. Read more
Phil Factor shows how to monitor for the errors indicative of a possible SQL Injection attack on one of your SQL Server databases, using a SQL Monitor custom metric that uses diagnostic data from Extended Events. Read more
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