SQL Network Test

This test monitors the availability and response time from clients by a Microsoft SQL database server from an external perspective.

Target of the test : A Microsoft SQL server

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every Microsoft SQL server monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
TEST PERIOD – How often should the test be executed Host– The IP address of the Microsoft SQL server. Port – The port number through which the Microsoft SQL server communicates. The default port is 1433. ssl – If the Microsoft SQL server being monitored is an SSL-enabled server, then set the ssl flag to Yes. If not, then set the ssl flag to No. instance - In this text box, enter the name of a specific Microsoft SQL instance that is to be monitored. The default value of this parameter is “default”. To monitor a Microsoft SQL instance named “CFS”, enter this as the value of the INSTANCE parameter. USER – If a Microsoft SQL Server 7.0/2000 is monitored, then provide the name of a SQL user with the Sysadmin role in this text box. While monitoring a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or above, provide the name of a SQL user with all of the privileges outlined in User Privileges Required for Monitoring Microsoft SQL server. password - The password of the specified user confirm password - Confirm the password by retyping it. domain - By default, none is displayed in the DOMAIN text box. If the ‘SQL server and Windows’ authentication has been enabled for the server being monitored, then the DOMAIN can continue to be none. On the other hand, if ‘Windows only’ authentication has been enabled, then, in the DOMAIN text box, specify the Windows domain in which the managed Microsoft SQL server exists. Also, in such a case, the USER name and PASSWORD that you provide should be that of a user authorized to access the monitored SQL server. database - The name of the database to connect to. The default is “master”. To monitor multiple databases, ensure that the database names are provided as a colon-separated list. Alternatively, you can use the semi-colon as the separator for the database names. query – The select query to execute. The default is “select * from master.dbo.spt_monitor”. If the target Microsoft SQL database server is installed as case sensitive, then the value of query parameter must be case sensitive. If multiple databases are specified in the DATABASE text box, then you will have to provide multiple queries here separated by a semi-colon (;) - for eg., select * from master.dbo.spt_monitor;select * from alarm. Every DATABASE being monitored, should have a corresponding QUERY specification. isntlmv2 - In some Windows networks, NTLM (NT LAN Manager) may be enabled. NTLM is a suite of Microsoft security protocols that provides authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users. NTLM version 2 (“NTLMv2”) was concocted to address the security issues present in NTLM. By default, the isntlmv2 flag is set to No, indicating that NTLMv2 is not enabled by default on the target Microsoft SQL host. Set this flag to Yes if NTLMv2 is enabled on the target host. ISPASSIVE – If the value chosen is yes, then the Microsoft SQL server under consideration is a passive server in a SQL cluster. No alerts will be generated if the server is not running. Measures will be reported as “Not applicable" by the agent if the server is not up. DETAILED DIAGNOSIS – To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
SQL server availability:	Indicates the availability of the server.	Percent	The availability is 100% when the server is responding to a request and 0% when it is not. Availability problems may be caused by a misconfiguration/malfunctioning of the database server, or because the server has not been started. The availability is 100% when the instance is responding to a request and 0% when it is not. Availability problems may be caused by a misconfiguration/malfunctioning of the database instance, or because the instance is using an invalid user account. Besides the above, this measure will report that the server is unavailable even if a connection to the database instance is unavailable, or if a query to the database fails. In this case, you can check the values of the DB connection availability and Query processor availability measures to know what is exactly causing the database instance to not respond to requests - is it owing to a connection unavailability? or is it due to a query failure? Using the detailed diagnosis of this measure, you can easily find out unavailability of the server.
SQL response time:	The time taken by the database to respond to a user query. This is the sum total of the connection time and query execution time.	Seconds	A sudden increase in response time is indicative of a bottleneck at the database server.
DB connection availability:	Indicates whether the database connection is available or not.	Percent	If this measure reports the value 100 , it indicates that the database connection is available. The value 0 on the other hand indicates that the database connection is unavailable. A connection to the database may be unavailable if the database is down or if the database is listening on a port other than the one configured for it in the eG manager or owing to a poor network link. If the SQL availability measure reports the value 0, then, you can check the value of this measure to determine whether/not it is due to the unavailability of a connection to the server.
Query processor availability:	Indicates whether the database query is executed successfully or not.	Percent	If this measure reports the value 100, it indicates that the query executed successfully. The value 0 on the other hand indicates that the query failed. In the event that the SQL availability measure reports the value 0, check the value of this measure to figure out whether the failed query is the reason why that measure reported a server unavailability.
Connection time to database server:	Indicates the time taken by the database connection.	Seconds	A high value could indicate a connection bottleneck. Whenever the SQL response time of the measure soars, you may want to check the value of this measure to determine whether a connection latency is causing the poor responsiveness of the server.
Query execution time:	Indicates the time taken for query execution.	Seconds	A high value could indicate that one/more queries to the database are taking too long to execute. Inefficient/badly designed queries to the database often run for long periods. If the value of this measure is higher than that of the Connection time measure, you can be rest assured that long running queries are the ones causing the responsiveness of the server to suffer.
Records fetched:	Indicates the number of records fetched from the database.	Number	The value 0 indicates that no records are fetched from the database