1. Customized Alerting with
Spotlight on SQL Server
Greg Robidoux
SQL Server Professional
SQL Server DBA Professionals
Global Marketing

2. This review is based on the
FREE SQL Server
performance monitoring
tool:
Spotlight on SQL Server.
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SQLDBApros

3. Managing SQL Server…
Managing SQL Server requires many tasks to be performed
by DBAs, including:
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Making sure databases are backed up
Performance is acceptable
Releasing updates into production
Security changes
SQL upgrades
Adding databases
Monitoring
And more…
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4. Maintenance & monitoring…
Maintenance and monitoring are
not the most fun aspects of being
a DBA, but without these tasks you
are headed for disaster.
Maintenance can be set up on an
automated schedule.
Monitoring requires human effort
to ensure the real issues are being
looked at and the non-critical
items are put on the back burner.
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5. Maintenance & monitoring…
In order to have a proper monitoring system you need to identify what
needs to be monitored, how you are alerted, and what items are
critical.
The Problem:
You can setup jobs to capture
critical information in T-SQL
and SQL Agent, but it is not as
easy to set limitations for when
and how frequently you are
notified.
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The Solution:
Spotlight on
SQL Server
Enterprise.
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6. Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise
• Alarm Actions
– Allow you to set up specific
criteria as to when an action
should take place
– Based on how an alarm (alert) is
configured
• Focus on the real issues and
not be bothered by non-critical
items.
Example:
When CPU has reached 90% for 5 minutes or more during business
hours, then an email might be sent to the DBA team.
You might have a highly intensive CPU operation that runs every night,
which you know is not critical and do not want to be notified.
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7. Alarm Actions – Conditions
Conditions build criteria that
determine if an alarm action is
to be fired –
• The alarm is…
– Identifies what alarms make
up this action (one or many)
• The connection’s tag is…
– Setup tags that group specific
servers together (production,
development, etc.)
• The day of the week is…
– Determine which days of the
week the alarm should be
fired.
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8. Alarm Actions – Actions
Actions allow us to
determine what to do if
all of the conditions are
met –
• Send email to…
– Which will send
an email to
specified
recipient
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9. Alarm Actions – Descriptions
Descriptions define the rules for the alarms–
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10. Example: Page Life Expectancy
Here is another example of an alarm action based on page life
expectancy that has occurred for at least 15 minutes with an action to
write to the Spotlight on SQL Server log. Conditions –
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11. Example: Page Life Expectancy
Actions –
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12. Example: Page Life Expectancy
Descriptions –
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13. Hone in…
Based on the examples, we were able to further define when an action
occurs based on several sets of criteria instead of just a counter or
measure reaching a certain threshold.
This allows you to further hone in on the mission critical servers as
well as critical items that need to be addressed by the DBA team.
There are several conditions and actions that can be taken besides just
sending an email –
Trying to replicate this level of complexity would take a great amount
of work in T-SQL and SQL Server Agent
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14. The beauty is…
You can set up the alarms once and then
build different criteria for more critical
servers so you can focus on what is really
important.
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15. Download a FREE TRIAL of Spotlight
on SQL Server
and start using Alarm Actions today!
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16. Learn More
View Greg’s Original Post
Download Spotlight on SQL Server
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