At some point someone will ask you for metrics about your SQL Servers. Why do you want to track the installation date? If you already collect the above information and the date SQL Server was installed, you can show more information about your SQL environment, leverage it to show trends and even present it to management as an argument for hiring more DBAs. You may want also opt to use one of the SERVERPROPERTY values. SERVERPROPERTY also has a parameter that will allow you to return the edition, which may be useful for reporting on, especially if there is to be a consolidation project.

1. 10 SQL Server Metrics
to Monitor
Rudy Panigas
SQL Server Professional
SQL Server DBA Professionals
Global Marketing

2. Adapted from the
original blog post by
Rudy Panigas.
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3. 10 key metrics
At some point, someone will ask you for metrics about your SQL
Servers. When that time comes, you should be prepared with some of
the following metrics:
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How many SQL Servers are installed?
How many SQL Servers are used as production?
How many SQL Servers are used as development?
How many SQL Servers are used as quality assurance (QA) and user
acceptance testing (UAT)?
How many SQL Servers are used as disaster recovery?
How many SQL Servers are at your location, cloud, other sites, etc.?
What applications are using each SQL Server(s)?
How many databases do you have?
How big are the databases and total size of disk use?
What were the installation dates of the SQL Servers?
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4. Installation date
Why do you want to track the installation date?
If you already collect the above information and the date the SQL
Server was installed, you can:
• Show more information about your SQL environment
• Leverage it to show trends
• Present it to management as an argument for hiring more resources
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5. T-SQL script
Here is the SQL script that will show the SQL Server name, version of
SQL Server, and the date of installation of your SQL Server:
You may also want to use one of the SERVERPROPERTY values.
SERVERPROPERTY also has a parameter that will allow you to return
the edition, which may be useful for reporting on, especially if there is
to be a consolidation project.
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6. Sample result
Here is a sample result:
Execute this script on all your SQL Server and record this information.
You can record the results into a spreadsheet or a table.
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7. What to do with the data
Once you have recorded this information on all of your SQL Server
installations, you can then use Excel Pivots or SQL Server Reporting
Services (SSRS) to create all types of interesting information:
• With just a SUM of the column, you get a total SQL Server count.
• If you had previous years’ totals, you can show how many SQL
Servers were added this and each preceding year.
• If you sort the data by year and month, you can show:
– How many SQL Server instances were installed
– When they were installed
– The busiest time for installation
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8. What to do with the data
• If you include SQL Server versioning, you can then break down the
report based on versions with totals and when they were installed.
– With this data you can also see which SQL Servers need to be upgraded
and show corresponding names and departments – if you have collected
this information.
• Sorting the data by types (production, development, UAT, etc.) you
can show how many of each type you have.
– If you collected department data you can also show how many SQL
Servers each one has.
• With Excel Pivots tables you can produce a graph showing current
growth rate and trend future growth.
There is a lot of information you can pass on to management that will
show interesting trends. This type of reporting helps management to
better understand your SQL Server environment.
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9. Graphical representation of results
This graph shows the total number of SQL Server installations from
2006 to 2013 (blue) and the trend of SQL Server growth (black).
Growth of SQL Server Environment
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
According to this graph, the number of installed SQL Servers will be
almost doubled by 2020.
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10. Graphical representation of results
This graph shows SQL Server versions and the years they were
installed.
30
25
20
SQL2005
SQL2008
15
SQL2012
SQL2014
10
5
0
2006
10
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
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11. Graphical representation of results
This graph shows how many SQL Servers were installed by department
and the breakdown of how they are used.
We see that both the Finance and Marketing departments have more
development SQL Servers than production and that Finance has the
least SQL Servers at the disaster recover (DR) site.
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12. Importance of data collection
These examples how you can use the collected information to help
you in many ways.
Initially, the collection may be painful, however, you can design more
automated ways of attaining the information.
Once maintained, you will quickly see the importance.
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13. Learn More
View the Original Blog Post
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