Microsoft SQL Server local counters

Microsoft SQL Server local counters

Improve the health and performance monitoring of your Microsoft SQL Servers.

Extension

Product information
Release notes

Overview

Microsoft SQL Server database monitoring is based on a local monitoring approach implemented as a Dynatrace OneAgent extension. The extension collects Windows Performance Counters for key performance and health metrics from the SQL Server instances running on the host.

Use cases

Understand the resource impact that your applications have on your database.
Understand the impact of resource shortages, locks or other database issues have on your application by observing the database server itself.
Track health and performance of the MS SQL servers.
Speed up the application problem diagnosis, where it’s caused by the database.

Get started

Elevated User Permissions

Performance counters can only be collected with a user that is part of the "Performance Monitor Users" group, however The Dynatrace Extensions Execution Controller (EEC) runs python extensions as 'LOCAL SERVICE' by default and so cannot query them.

You need to configure the Dynatrace OneAgent EEC to run this extension with elevated 'LOCAL SYSTEM' account privleges.

Add an elevated_privileges_extensions configuration option to the extensionsuser.conf file.
- Windows: C:ProgramData\dynatrace\oneagent\agent\config\extensionsuser.conf
elevated_privileges_extensions should be a comma separated list of extensions to run as 'LOCAL SYSTEM' (instead of the default 'LOCAL SERVICE'). The format is: <extensionName>:<extensionVersion>
- e.g, elevated_privileges_extensions=[com.dynatrace.extension.python.wmi.mssql:*]

Activation

Make sure OneAgent is installed and running on the SQL Server host.
Make sure that log monitoring is enabled to be able to troubleshoot the monitoring.
Activate the extension from the Hub and select the host/s to enable this on

Details

This extension collects performance counter metrics for SQL Server Instances on a host monitored by a Dynatrace OneAgent.

This extension is a re-write of the existing local SQL Server extension which used WMI queries.
Performance counter queries are batched and much more efficient.

Compatibility information

OneAgent 1.305+ (Elevated user permissions)

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Extension content

Content typeNumber of items included

screen injections

1

screen properties

1

generic relationship

1

dashboards

1

screen actions

2

screen chart groups

6

screen layout

1

metric metadata

18

list screen layout

1

generic type

1

screen entities lists

3

Feature sets

Below is a complete list of the feature sets provided in this version. To ensure a good fit for your needs, individual feature sets can be activated and deactivated by your administrator during configuration.

Feature setsNumber of metrics included

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Lock waits	sql-server.local.locks.waits	Number of lock requests that required the caller to wait	PerSecond
Deadlocks	sql-server.local.locks.deadlocks	Number of lock requests that resulted in a deadlock	PerSecond

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Buffer cache hit	sql-server.local.buffers.cacheHitRatio	Percentage of pages found in the buffer cache without having to read from disk	Percent
Checkpoint pages	sql-server.local.buffers.checkpointPages	Number of pages flushed to disk by a checkpoint or other operations that require all dirty pages to be flushed	Count
Page life expectancy	sql-server.local.buffers.pageLifeExpectancy	Number of seconds a page will stay in the buffer pool without references	Second

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Page splits	sql-server.local.accessMethods.pageSplits	Number of page splits that occur as a result of overflowing index pages	PerSecond

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Processes blocked	sql-server.local.general.processesBlocked	Number of currently blocked processes	Count
Transactions	sql-server.local.general.transactions	Number of transaction enlistments (local, dtc, and bound)	Count
User connections	sql-server.local.general.userConnections	Number of users currently connected to SQL Server	Count

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Batch requests	sql-server.local.sql.batchRequests	Number of Transact-SQL command batches received	Count
SQL compilations	sql-server.local.sql.compilations	Number of SQL statement compilations	PerSecond
SQL re-compilations	sql-server.local.sql.recompilations	Number of SQL statement re-compilations	PerSecond

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Connection memory	sql-server.local.memory.connection	Total amount of dynamic memory the server is using for maintaining connections	KiloByte
Memory grants outstanding	sql-server.local.memory.grantsOutstanding	Number of processes that have successfully acquired a workspace memory grant	Count
Memory grants pending	sql-server.local.memory.grantsPending	Number of processes waiting for a workspace memory grant	Count
Target server memory	sql-server.local.memory.target	Amount of memory that can be consumed by memory manager	KiloByte
Total server memory	sql-server.local.memory.total	Amount of memory the server has committed using the memory manager	KiloByte

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Latch waits	sql-server.local.latches.waits	Number of latch requests that could not be granted immediately	Count

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