[SIMS] SIMs Monitoring

[m25man]

Im always being asked how can we tell if our SIMs server is working properly and determining/tuning SQL performance is quite an art in itself but the chaps at ManageEngine have put together a pretty slick tool for free thats worth a try if only to satisfy your curiosity that all that money your LA charged you for your SIMS box was worth it..

Free MS SQL performance monitoring Tool, Monitor MS SQL 2005, MS SQL 2008 server with Free SQL Health Monitor

The Free Hyper-V Monitor is pretty good too but only lets you have 2 Host servers which is not a lot of use if you need to monitor a 3 node cluster from afar

[vikpaw]

I'll await Gin and Tonic's review ;P

In the mean time, they appear to have quite a few pieces of freeware including a VMWare tool to monitor ESx, will have to check them out in the week.

Free Enterprise Management Software - Network Performance Management, IT Help Desk & Desktop, Server Management

[rh91uk]

Ahyes, thankyou! I will be using this - a few issues here and there!

[Butuz]

FANTASTIC!!!!!!

Butuz

[vikpaw]

FANTASTIC!!!!!!

Butuz

I know, something free AND really useful, it's the best thing since sliced EduGeek

[fiza]

Old Thread I know - but I've tried to use the free SQL monitor. I installed it on my PC and then put in the details of my SQL Server. The Health Monitor can connect to the server but states "SQL Server Version - Not Installed". I know its installed because its running SIMS!!!
Its not the firewall as Ive tried it with server firewall off.
Anyone any ideas?

[vikpaw]

Don't know, i have it linked to server same as you, it says not installed.
What OS etc you got? Mine as per sig'
The help says 'DBA will see ... ' so it implies you need to give dba access, i have windows auth, but it must not be going through.
Maybe it needs to be on the server, or have that service installed locally that monitors SQL, was it the browser or agent or something on the old SQL that showed all SQL instances available. I'm not running SQL Management studio locally, are you? Might install that tomorrow and see how it goes.

[fiza]

Mine is Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2, Physical Server with 16GB RAM. I ran it both on my PC and on the Server. Same thing. I have Management Studio installed but Im not really clued up on the inner workings of SQL so not sure what to look for.

[vikpaw]

hi @fiza
What OS is your client and what version of dotnet framework are you running? I'm win7 with 2, but trying 3.5.
I'm talking to the company support team, so thought your info might help them too as on server side we're the same.

[fiza]

@vikpaw
OS is XP SP3 and dotnet is 3.5

[vikpaw]

Apparently @fiza it's only designed to work on a default SQL instance and we no doubt have a named instance. No other issues.
I've got some registry and wmi things to check but not sure it will help. Will get back to you tomorrow If I get any joy.

[fiza]

@vikpaw
We certainly do!!!
Thanks for the detective work.

[vikpaw]

@vikpaw
We certainly do!!!
Thanks for the detective work.

No worries. It wont work. To use on a named instance we need SQLDBManager Plus which is a paid for product. Shame.
Interested to know if @m25man or anyone else in the thread actually managed to use it.
I've got a number of sql dbs for various little jobs, but i always use a named instance.