Monitoring on Rudi Bruchez

Basic counters

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a list of the Windows and SQL Server performance counters to watch, to make sure SQL Server is running properly.

Processor / % Processor Time

Total processor time as a percentage, and per core where useful, to watch how the threads are distributed.

Physical Disk / Avg. Disk sec/Read

Watch this on the disks holding the SQL Server data files.

It is the average time in seconds of a data read from disk — a latency measurement. Depending on the type of disk, local or remote, the value should ideally stay below .025, that is 25 milliseconds of latency.

Monitoring with PRTG

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

PRTG Network Monitor is a commercial monitoring product from Paessler. This guide explains how to configure it to monitor SQL Server.

There does not appear to be a package or counter group tailored to SQL Server natively in PRTG. You have to add them by hand.

To do that, add a “Windows PerfCounter Custom” sensor, and register the Windows performance counters related to SQL Server.

The simplest approach is to look the counters up directly on the SQL Server machine to identify the ones you care about, then enter them by hand in PRTG.