Performance Alerts

Today, I am going to talk about setting up performance alerts so that you can notified when a server has issues. Basically, there are two types of performance alerts, SQL Server and WMI. I am going to use the sp_add_category system procedure to define a peformance category.

The sp_add_alert stored procedure is used to create the alert and the sp_add_notification stored procedure is used to associate the alert with an operator. This process is used below to show examples of both SQL and WMI performance alerts. The first type…

System Alerts

This article assumes that you configured both database mail and system operators. Please see my previous articles if you have not done these tasks already. Today, I am going to talk about setting up alerts for system error messages that might occur with your SQL server database. Since alerts have been around for a long time, most of this information is backward compatible with older software versions. The database engine defines the importance of an error messages with a severity level. Low importance errors are defined by levels 0 to…

Defining Operators

SQL Server supports the notification of administrators through operators. Operators are aliases for users or groups that can receive notifications when jobs complete or alerts have been raised. Each SQL Server instance can have its own set of defined operators. Today, I am going to walk you thru the following tasks in Transaction SQL. Adding an operator Updating an operator Deleting an operator Defining a fail-safe operator To define an operator, one needs to know the email address of the user and what time he is responsible for the SQL…

DBA – Introduction

Today, I am going to start writing another topic thread for Database Administration (DBA). I do alot of DBA work among many other things at my current job. I am going to cheat a little by copying a list from a renown SQL Server MVP named Paul Randal. This list was published in a TechNet Magazine article in November, 2010. To be a succesful database administrator, you should start working your way through the following tasks (secrets) to manage choas at your organization.

In the coming weeks, I am…