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Monitoring SQL Cluster

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0

I would like to monitor the services, disk space and instances of Microsoft SQL 2008 R2 running on two Microsoft Windows Enterprise 2008 R2 servers in Failover Cluster mode.

I have tried installing PRTG independently on each but when the resources change to the other cluster node, PRTG gives a warning that the service or drives do not exist.

I have tried installing PRTG in cluster mode, but that didnt work either.

I have tried remote monitoring the SQL resources by monitoring the clusters virtual network. That didnt work either.

Has anyone managed to achieve this and please tell me how you did it.

cluster failover sql

Created on Nov 24, 2010 9:18:31 AM



Best Answer

Accepted Answer

Votes:

1

I didn't know if anyone has resolved this yet so I figured I would post up how I resolved the issue in my environment.

We have a two node SQL cluster in Active/Active mode.
I create a "Group" inside of PRTG and then create a "Device" for each of the following items.
Host1, Host2, MSDTC, SQLInstance1, SQLInstance2. Each of these can be monitored independently as they all have a specific IP or set of IP's associated with them.

On each of the host nodes I monitor only the following items:
Ping, CPU Load, CPU Queue Length, Memory, Physical Hardware, Network Connectivity, Locally Exclusive Storage, Uptime
On the DTC I monitor:
Disk Utilization for the DTC Drive, DTC Service
On the SQLInstance1&2 I monitor:
Disk Utilization, SQL Services, Disk Queue Length, SQL Server Statistics (General Stats, Access Methods etc...)

What does this get you?
Each SQL host node independently monitored for CPU, RAM and Network performance.
Each SQL Instance independently monitored for Disk, service availability, SQL performance Statistics

What does this not get you?
Which node is my SQL Instance running on?

What have I not yet tested?
Running an SQL query against a specific database. Though I do not see why it would not work.

I'm pretty sure that you could run a SQL command against the master DB to figure out what the host name is of the machine that it is running on (I actually just had that idea as I typed it) but I've been buried at work lately so I've not thought much about it.

Hopefully I'm not too late to the party here or someone finds this handy. Thanks!

Created on Jan 16, 2013 3:49:10 AM

Last change on Jan 16, 2013 6:43:38 AM by Konstantin Wolff [Paessler Support]



11 Replies

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I am setting up such a system at the moment on VM ESX for our internal testing at the moment.

But it will still take some time before we might come up with a solution.

Created on Nov 24, 2010 8:33:25 PM by Aurelio Lombardi [Paessler Support]



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any progress on this?

same issue with fileserver cluster

when the active node switches sensors alarm

Created on Jan 24, 2011 4:52:05 PM



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Aurelio, any progress on setting up such a system? We also would like to have an alarm triggered when failover occurs.

Created on Feb 1, 2012 2:37:25 PM



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hallo, this is still on my task list, but priority is not so high, sorry. I need 48 h days!!!

Created on Feb 1, 2012 3:13:10 PM by Aurelio Lombardi [Paessler Support]



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let me know if you figure out 48 hour days :)

Created on Feb 1, 2012 3:18:45 PM



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I also have this issue with monitoring a SQL and File cluster. I would also love to know more about these 48 hour days! :)

Created on Mar 23, 2012 5:27:48 PM



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Hello, any progress on this? We really need it and PRTG is letting us down badly. Every time a resource changes PRTG says it's down, even if we move it back to the originating node. Please fix this.

Created on Aug 24, 2012 6:49:43 AM



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Hello, unfortunately it's not upon us to fix this, it's an issue in the design of WMI, basing on MAC-addresses, and so when the cluster switches, the IP may stay the same, the MAC-Address will change, so the WMI connection is no longer valid and has to be rebuilt. Sadly building a WMI connection takes much longer, than requesting the actual value, so we cannot do that with each scan, otherwise only a few WMI sensors per target would be possible with maybe 5-10 minute scanning interval.

Created on Aug 24, 2012 2:31:12 PM by Torsten Lindner [Paessler Support]



Accepted Answer

Votes:

1

I didn't know if anyone has resolved this yet so I figured I would post up how I resolved the issue in my environment.

We have a two node SQL cluster in Active/Active mode.
I create a "Group" inside of PRTG and then create a "Device" for each of the following items.
Host1, Host2, MSDTC, SQLInstance1, SQLInstance2. Each of these can be monitored independently as they all have a specific IP or set of IP's associated with them.

On each of the host nodes I monitor only the following items:
Ping, CPU Load, CPU Queue Length, Memory, Physical Hardware, Network Connectivity, Locally Exclusive Storage, Uptime
On the DTC I monitor:
Disk Utilization for the DTC Drive, DTC Service
On the SQLInstance1&2 I monitor:
Disk Utilization, SQL Services, Disk Queue Length, SQL Server Statistics (General Stats, Access Methods etc...)

What does this get you?
Each SQL host node independently monitored for CPU, RAM and Network performance.
Each SQL Instance independently monitored for Disk, service availability, SQL performance Statistics

What does this not get you?
Which node is my SQL Instance running on?

What have I not yet tested?
Running an SQL query against a specific database. Though I do not see why it would not work.

I'm pretty sure that you could run a SQL command against the master DB to figure out what the host name is of the machine that it is running on (I actually just had that idea as I typed it) but I've been buried at work lately so I've not thought much about it.

Hopefully I'm not too late to the party here or someone finds this handy. Thanks!

Created on Jan 16, 2013 3:49:10 AM

Last change on Jan 16, 2013 6:43:38 AM by Konstantin Wolff [Paessler Support]



Votes:

0

In reference to ... "What have I not yet tested? Running an SQL query against a specific database. Though I do not see why it would not work."...

Select ServerProperty('ComputerNamePhysicalNetBIOS') AS 'Node'

You would run this query against the sql cluster name on the master database. It would give you the name of the active node of the cluster.

Created on Feb 15, 2013 8:58:36 PM



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Funny that you would mention that Tammie, I was just about to post up that exact command. :) Though, I saved it as a stored procedure in the MasterDB and call it with the SQL-Expression "EXEC sql_hostname". It works an absolute treat and alerts us when the results change from "Node-1" to "Node-2" and back again. Thanks! - Chris

Created on Feb 18, 2013 11:35:11 PM




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