SQL Server monitoring tools

SQL Server monitoring is a continuous process that assesses the performance of Microsoft SQL Server. It’s the first step towards optimizing the performance of workloads that depend on the SQL Server database. A comprehensive SQL Server monitoring tool can offer a bird’s-eye view of the entire enterprise’s data through deep analytics that database administrators (DBAs) can leverage to detect and fix issues before they impact users.

This post explores the criteria that make an excellent SQL Server monitoring tool, benefits that SQL Server monitoring tools provide, and issues arising from slow servers. It also examines why SQL Server monitoring tools must be implemented with the robust security that Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) provides.

Criteria for the best SQL Server monitoring tools

SQL Server monitoring is essential to modern-day workloads because many applications rely heavily on a SQL Server as an enterprise database solution. In the recent past, several SQL Server monitoring solutions have emerged that DBAs can leverage to optimize database performance. However, not all of them may serve your enterprise requirements.

Let’s explore some of the features you need to look for in an effective SQL Server monitoring solution. They are:

Scalability. Since your business and the entire database infrastructure will continue to expand, it’s vital to have a monitoring solution that can scale with these components. You’ll need to look for a solution that can monitor multiple environments, including physical, virtual, and cloud-based infrastructures.
Performance metrics. The tool you opt for needs to display all the essential SQL Server performance metrics, including queries with high input/output, long-running queries, missing indexes, deadlocks, and waits. In addition, an effective tool should also monitor the database infrastructure load, such as processor and storage utilization.
Ease-of-use. Effective software should simplify everyday tasks of SQL Server monitoring with a simple and easy-to-use dashboard that even inexperienced DBAs can use to detect and fix database issues. The tools also need to integrate seamlessly with third-party tools, whether via a robust application programming interface (API) or out-of-the-box connectors.
Performance tuning. Tracking and optimizing query performance is essential to determining and fixing problematic queries. In this regard, the SQL Server monitoring solution should have the capability of performing root-cause analysis to identify underlying causes of performance issues.
Robust alert mechanisms. Generating alerts for critical workload conditions enables DBAs to take corrective measures quickly. A SQL Server monitoring software with an inbuilt and customizable alerting system can promptly notify DBAs whenever it detects certain environmental conditions.

Benefits offered by SQL Server performance monitoring tools

Unlike do-it-yourself (DIY) solutions that often rely on guesswork, a SQL Server monitoring tool allows you to leverage the expertise and experience of a solution vendor to deliver essential system metrics. Below are some benefits that you can derive from leveraging a SQL Server performance monitoring tool:

Automate monitoring processes. Manually monitoring a SQL Server can become a tedious process. For example, DBAs need to spend countless hours each day collecting data from event logs, performance counters, and dynamic management views (DMVs) across multiple servers and instances. In addition, they still need to format data in a consumable fashion after collection. A SQL Server performance monitoring solution automates some of the monitoring processes, placing the database platform in a predictable state.
Reduce performance-related incidents and outages. Database performance-related incidents, such as slow applications and full production downtime, can be extremely costly for an organization since they affect the overall return on investment (ROI). A proactive monitoring tool can help you avoid some of these issues, allowing DBAs to open fewer tickets. It frees the DBAs, enabling them to focus on optimizing the entire database infrastructure and supporting other processes.
Lower overall infrastructure cost. Monitoring a SQL Server and underlying applications can become more complex as database infrastructure becomes denser and more dispersed. A SQL Server performance monitoring tool allows you to optimize database infrastructure investments by ensuring that workloads attain the best possible performances within hardware boundaries and service level agreements (SLAs).
Manage security risks. An unmonitored SQL Server can leave the organization open to security risks, including malware or viruses. For companies that deal with sensitive data, any security issue can have a detrimental impact on the business’s bottom line, including damage to its reputation. Proactive SQL Server monitoring can help you manage some of these issues that can be costly for the business.

Issues with slow SQL Servers

There are some instances when performance issues can sneak into SQL Server, especially after updating some applications or upgrading the SQL Server to a newer version. In some cases, you can find that SQL queries have suddenly begun to perform poorly for no apparent reason. Either way, problems that can arise when dealing with such slow SQL servers include the following:

Monitoring the database size can become tricky. SQL Server will need more CPU and memory to read data from tables as the data size grows. Under such scenarios, database operations can be slowed down significantly, especially if the organization lacks proactive SQL Server monitoring solutions that track down the hard disks to ensure they don’t run out of space.
Determining expensive queries can become complex. Isolating the most expensive queries in a database in terms of resource consumption is essential to the server’s performance. In addition, finding out which workloads are consuming these expensive queries can help you diagnose the issues behind the queries and remediate them quickly and efficiently. Without proactive monitoring software, tracking down some of the most expensive queries in a database system is increasingly difficult.
Index fragmentation becomes a complicated process. Proper SQL indexing allows users to search the database faster and more efficiently. However, this process can become complex when data gets modified, erased, or removed. Under such scenarios, the indexed content usually gets scattered, resulting in database fragmentation and degradation. Without a SQL Server monitoring solution, it can be challenging to identify inefficient or absent indexes in a database system.
Tracking database performance becomes a complex affair. CPU, memory, cache, network, and paging are some of the most common SQL Server performance items that DBAs need to monitor constantly to ensure the database infrastructure performs optimally. You’ll need a pre-emptive SQL Server monitoring solution to monitor and track these issues in real time.

SQL Server monitoring tools complemented with strong security

SQL Server is undoubtedly one of the most critical assets that an organization can have since it provides storage for valuable data and serves as a back-end tool for many enterprise workloads. That’s why monitoring it for optimal performance is crucial to achieving the business’s bottom line.

However, it isn’t enough to simply monitor its performance. You’ll also need to complement the monitoring tool with robust cloud security services. Such a tool needs to provide detailed visibility into changes that occur to SQL Server objects and account permissions. Without such a framework, a single improper modification to a SQL Server object or permission can expose sensitive data, potentially leading to hacks and data breaches.

In addition, the security solution should be able to track which users have authenticated to each of the SQL Server instances. For example, it should trace which users have logged into the database system and which resources they accessed. This way, the platform holds users accountable for their actions while identifying those that attempt to access the database inappropriately.

Parallels RAS enhances security for your SQL Server monitoring tools

Unmonitored SQL servers can become tricky to maintain and are more prone to failure. Monitoring your SQL Server through a SQL Server monitoring solution can help you determine potential performance issues and resolve them before they become serious problems. It can also help enhance productivity, minimize downtime, and potentially save you money on database infrastructure costs.

However, to derive even more value from a SQL Server monitoring tool, you’ll need to augment it with a robust security solution.Parallels® RAS is an out-of-the-box virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution that users can leverage to get access to their applications from any major cloud service provider (CSP), including Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Azure. The Parallels RAS Reporting Service seamlessly integrates with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), allowing organizations to leverage SQL Server to unearth insights into the workload performance.

DBAs that value data analytics can leverage Parallels RAS to collect essential information, including user preferences, resources used to connect to the database, and active and idle times. The platform offers an intuitive reporting engine that DBAs can use to enhance system performance and efficiency.

Try Parallels RAS today and find out firsthand how it enhances the security of your SQL Server monitoring tools!

Download the Trial