Marcin Gminski is a SQL Server consultant with over 15 years of experience. He created SQLWATCH, an open source SQL Server performance monitoring tool with PowerBI reports. SQLWATCH collects performance data locally on each monitored server through performance counters, DMVs and extended events. It has a small footprint and is maintenance free. The installation deploys a database to each server where data is stored locally. PowerBI reports provide visualization of performance metrics, queries, memory usage and more. The tool is hosted on GitHub and the community is invited to contribute.

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SQLWATCH.IO
Community driven SQL Server Performance Monitor
Marcin Gminski, SQL Server consultant

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Marcin Gminski
• SQL Server consultant with over 15 years
experience in enterprise databases and
performance testing.
• Lead DBA, architect, developer and performance
consultant on a number of large projects in
Banking, Public and Private sectors.
• Managed over 3000 SQL Servers at once.
• Twitter: @marcingminski
• Website: https://marcin.gminski.net
• Email: marcin@gminski.net

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Agenda
• What is SQLWATCH (1 minute)
• Why (5 minutes)
• Design (5 minutes)
• Features (5 minutes)
• Installation (5 minutes)
• Reports (20 minutes)
• Future Plans (5 minutes)
• Contribute (5 minutes)
• QA (5 minutes)

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What is SQLWATCH

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SQL Server Performance Data
Collector with PowerBI reports

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Why

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To better understand workloads
and bottlenecks…
…because SQL Server does not
make it obvious…

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History

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History

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History

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But… there are very
good third party tools
available already…

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Dedicated
third party
monitoring
(PROD)
In-house
monitoring
No monitoring
NOT GOOD
Good, but you are going
to have to maintain it
and keep up to date
Lucky you, well done
No
monitoring
(NON
PROD)
SQLWATCH SQLWATCH
SQLWATCH

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The concept of SQL Server monitoring
• Performance monitoring isn’t just about real time alerts and charts. It
is mostly about collecting correlated performance data for later
analysis, ideally over a period of time
• Performance is really only relevant in a context or in a comparison.
• Performance monitoring isn’t just about production systems but
should be done throughout the lifecycle from development to
production readiness.
• Making sense out of the data is the most complex task
• SQL metrics are cumulative and some are point in time (Query store is
slightly different)

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Point in time metrics
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
ProcessorTime%
00:13.201:12.702:12.803:22.304:12.605:12.006:13.007:12.508:12.209:12.710:12.411:12.512:12.413:13.914:12.215:13.116:12.317:14.218:12.6
cntr_value
• “as is” values
• Easy to capture and
present as no
calculation required
• Reducing data
points means
calculating averages
over the removed
period
• Not storage friendly

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Point in time metrics

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Cumulative metrics
1899600
1899800
1900000
1900200
1900400
1900600
1900800
1901000
1901200
1901400
1901600
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
AverageWaitTime(ms)
00:13.201:12.702:12.803:22.304:12.605:12.006:13.007:12.508:12.209:12.710:12.411:12.512:12.413:13.914:12.215:13.116:12.3
cntr_value
• Constantly increasing
values
• Easy to capture but
difficult to present,
need to calculate
deltas on the fly
• storage friendly as
reducing data points
reduces resolution
but not information

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Cumulative metrics

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How we collect performance data
• OS Performance Counters and WMI
• SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMVs)
• SQL Server related Performance counters only
• Transactions and executions
• SQL Server Extended Events
• SQL Server Traces (deprecated, use XE)

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SQLWATCH brings standardised
monitoring to all SQL Servers

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Design and features

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Conceptual Design
1
2 3

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Key features
• Works with all current SQL Server versions excluding Express.
• Enterprise friendly
• Decentralised collection - own database deployed to each monitoring
instance
• Local storage, nothing is sent over the network and thus data collection
does not depend on network connectivity
• Driven by Agent Jobs
• PowerBI for reporting and data analysis
• Small footprint and impact on the instance
• Set it and forget it maintenance free approach

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Database schema

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Key collectors
• Performance Metrics
• Index statistics, usage and missing indexes report
• Query statistics
• Memory
• Database statistics
• Datafiles growth
• Logical disk growth
• ..and growing

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Configuration

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Installation

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Hosted on GitHub -> Releases
https://github.com/marcingminski/sqlwatch/releases

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Deploy DACPAC
• GUI (SSMS -> Deploy Data-Tier Application)
• Command Line (Sqlpackage.exe)
• SqlPackage.exe /Action:Publish /SourceFile:SQLWATCH.dacpac
/TargetDatabaseName:SQLWATCH /TargetServerName:SQLSERVER
• dbatools.io (PR submmited by the community)
• After you have deployed database run job: DBA-PERF-AUTO-CONFIG

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Reports demo

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Performance Overview

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Query statistics

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Memory

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Database statistics

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Logical file statistics

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Logical disk statistics

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Generic Performance Counter analyser

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WhoIsActive by Adam Machanic

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Missing indexes

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Database utilisation

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Disk utilisation

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Future Plans

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Future plans
• Index analysis (ready to be released)
• Alerting
• SQL ERRORLOG Analysis
• Table growth
• Query store
• Server configuration
• Backup and maintenance history
• SQL agent history
• Explore SQLTiger repository
• Centralised repository and reporting
• (Maybe!) .NET web frontend (or integrate with Opserver)

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Contribute

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Contribute
• Open source
• Hosted on GitHub
• Visual Studio Project
• CI/CD using AppVeyor
• Automated Testing

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QA
Feedback form (Thank you):
https://bit.ly/2Fnnvkv
Twitter: @marcingminski
Website: https://marcin.gminski.net
Email: marcin@gminski.net