Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed- P151 ppt

For example, the following code changes the number of days to retain collection set data to seven days for the Server Activity collection set: USE msdb; GO EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_stop_

USE msdb;

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_disable_collector;

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_enable_collector;

GO

To force the running of a noncached collection set and have it upload to the MDW for

collection sets configured in noncached collection mode, use the

sp_syscollector_run_collection_setsystem procedure:

sp_syscollector_run_collection_set

[[ @collection_set_id = ] collection_set_id]

, [[ @name = ] ‘name’ ]

You can pass either the collection set ID or the collection name When you are passing

one, the other parameter can be NULL:

USE msdb;

GO

EXEC sp_syscollector_run_collection_set @name = ‘Disk Usage’

go

To force a manual update of a cached mode Data Collector, you can use the

sp_syscollector_upload_collection_setprocedure:

USE msdb;

GO

EXEC sp_syscollector_upload_collection_set @name = ‘Server Activity’

go

To stop or start a specific collector set, you can use the

sp_syscollector_start_collection_setandsp_syscollector_stop_collectionset

stored procedures:

USE msdb;

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_stop_collection_set @name = ‘Disk Usage’

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_start_collection_set @name = ‘Disk Usage’

GO

To modify a collection set, you can use the sp_syscollector_update_collection_set

procedure The syntax is as follows:

sp_syscollector_update_collection_set

[ [ @collection_set_id = ] collection_set_id ]

, [ [ @name = ] ‘name’ ]

, [ [ @new_name = ] ‘new_name’ ]

, [ [ @target = ] ‘target’ ]

, [ [ @collection_mode = ] collection_mode ]

, [ [ @days_until_expiration = ] days_until_expiration ]

, [ [ @proxy_id = ] proxy_id ]

, [ [ @proxy_name = ] ‘proxy_name’ ]

, [ [ @schedule_uid = ] ‘schedule_uid’ ]

, [ [ @schedule_name = ] ‘schedule_name’ ]

, [ [ @logging_level = ] logging_level ]

, [ [ @description = ] ‘description’ ]

If the collection set is running, the only options you can modify are the schedule_uidand

description You need to stop the collection set withsp_syscollector_stop_collection_set

first to change other options like the collection-mode or days_until_expiration For

example, the following code changes the number of days to retain collection set data to

seven days for the Server Activity collection set:

USE msdb;

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_stop_collection_set @name = ‘Disk Usage’

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_update_collection_set

@name = N’Server Activity’,

@days_until_expiration = 7;

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_syscollector_start_collection_set @name = ‘Disk Usage’

GO

To view information about the configured collection sets, you can run a query on the

syscollector_collection_sets table similar to the following:

select collection_set_id as ID,

cast (scs.name as varchar(20)) as name,

is_running as ‘running’,

case collection_mode when 0 then ‘cached’

else ‘noncached’ end as coll_mode,

days_until_expiration as retntn,

cast (s.name as varchar(30)) as schedule

from syscollector_collection_sets scs

inner join

sysschedules s

on scs.schedule_uid = s.schedule_uid

go

ID name running coll_mode retntn schedule

- - - -

-2 Server Activity 1 cached 7 CollectorSchedule_Every_15min

3 Query Statistics 1 cached 14 CollectorSchedule_Every_15min

4 Utility Information 1 noncached 1 CollectorSchedule_Every_30min

1 Disk Usage 1 noncached 730 CollectorSchedule_Every_6h

There are other informational views you can use to view the data collection configuration:

To display the location of the temporary cache and the MDW

select * From syscollector_config_store

go

parameter_name parameter_value

-

-CacheDirectory D:\SQL2008\DCTemp

CacheWindow 1

CollectorEnabled 1

MDWDatabase UnleashedMDW

MDWInstance LATITUDED830-W7\PERFDW

To display the data collection capture and upload

information from the execution log

select * From syscollector_config_store

go

select csc.name as collection_set, start_time

From syscollector_execution_log sel

inner join

syscollector_collection_sets csc

on sel.collection_set_id = csc.collection_set_id

order by csc.name, start_time

go

You can also use the stored procedures, functions, and views that are provided to create

your own end-to-end data collection scenarios

Creating a Customized Data Collection Set

Although you cannot change or delete the built-in system Data Collectors, you can define

your own custom data collection sets However, currently, you can define them only in

T-SQL There are four different collector types that you can use to build a collector set:

T-SQL query—Executes a user-provided T-SQL statement as an input parameter,

saves the output from the query, and then uploads the output to the management

data warehouse

SQL Trace—Uses SQL Trace to monitor the SQL Server Relational Engine, with trace

data coming from the system default trace or from one or more custom traces

Performance counters—Collects specific performance counter information from

Windows Performance Monitor on the computer running SQL Server 2008

Query activity—Collects query statistics and query activity information along with

the query plan and query text for queries that meet predefined criteria Essentially,

this collector type collects the same information as the Query Statistics collection

set, so it is recommended that you simply use the predefined Query Statistics

collection set

One of the reasons you might create a customized data collection set is that the default

system Data Collector for Query Statistics does not store all the statements It captures

only the worst-performing queries based on the algorithms specified in the collection set

You might want to collect more queries than the top three worst performing ones

However, if you create your own data collection for query statistics, you should probably

disable the default system collector to reduce data collection overhead

This chapter shows how to create a custom collection set to monitor a few Performance

Monitor counters

TIP

To see an example of a collection set based on performance counters, DMVs, and

T-SQL queries, you can look at the definition of the default Server Activity collection set

You can easily see this definition by right-clicking on Server Activity in the System Data

Collection Setsfolder in SSMS and selecting Script Data Collection

There is also GUI support for creating a collection set based on a SQL Server Profiler

trace After you define a trace in SQL Server Profiler with the events you want to

cap-ture, select Export from the File menu; then choose Script Trace Definition and select

For SQL Trace Collection Set Doing so generates a T-SQL script that you can use to

create a custom Data Collector Set based on a SQL Server Profiler Trace definition

Assuming you’ve already set up your MDW, you can begin by creating the data collection

set and adding the collection items you want it to contain To create the data collection

set, use the sp_syscollector_create_collection_setprocedure Next, you need to create

thecollection_itemsto indicate what information you want the collection set to collect

If you are creating collection items for Performance Monitor counters, The Performance

Counter collector type takes three input parameters:

Objects—The SQL Server objects running in an instance of SQL Server

Counters—The counters associated with a SQL Server object

Instances—The instances of the specified object

Some input parameters support wildcard characters, which enable you to include multiple

counters in a single statement However, you can use wild cards only at the Counters and

Instances levels and, even then, only at the beginning of the string (for example, ’*

Processor’) or at the end of the string (for example, ’Memory *’)

An example of the creation of custom collection set for capturing information for the

Logical DiskandProcessPerformance Monitor counters is shown in Listing 39.1

Use msdb

go

Declare @collection_set_id_1 int

Declare @collection_set_uid_2 uniqueidentifier

EXEC [dbo].[sp_syscollector_create_collection_set]

@name=N’Disk I/O Perf and SQL CPU’,

@collection_mode=1, — non-cached

@description=

N’Collects logical disk performance counters and SQL Process CPU’,

@target=N’’,

@logging_level=0,

@days_until_expiration=7,

@proxy_name=N’’,

@schedule_name=N’CollectorSchedule_Every_5min’,

@collection_set_id=@collection_set_id_1 OUTPUT,

@collection_set_uid=@collection_set_uid_2 OUTPUT

Select collection_set_id_1=@collection_set_id_1,

collection_set_uid_2=@collection_set_uid_2

/********************************************

** Now, create the desired collection items

*********************************************/

Declare @collector_type_uid_3 uniqueidentifier

Select @collector_type_uid_3 = collector_type_uid

From [dbo].[syscollector_collector_types]

Where name = N’Performance Counters Collector Type’;

Declare @collection_item_id_4 int

EXEC [dbo].[sp_syscollector_create_collection_item]

@name=N’Logical Disk Collection and SQL Server CPU’,

@parameters=N’<ns:PerformanceCountersCollector xmlns:ns=”DataCollectorType”>

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Avg Disk Bytes/Read”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Avg Disk Bytes/Write”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Avg Disk sec/Read”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Avg Disk sec/Write”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Disk Read Bytes/sec”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”LogicalDisk”

Counters=”Disk Write Bytes/sec”

Instances=”*” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”Process”

Counters=”% Privileged Time”

Instances=”sqlservr” />

<PerformanceCounters Objects=”Process”

Counters=”% Processor Time”

Instances=”sqlservr” />

</ns:PerformanceCountersCollector>’,

@collection_item_id=@collection_item_id_4 OUTPUT,

@frequency=5,

@collection_set_id=@collection_set_id_1,

@collector_type_uid=@collector_type_uid_3

Select @collection_item_id_4

Go

After you create the collection set, you can start this data collection, either through SSMS

(your user-defined collection sets will be listed directly within the Data Collectionnode)

or with the following stored procedure call:

Declare @collection_set_id int

select @collection_set_id = collection_set_id

from syscollector_collection_sets

where name = ‘Disk I/O Perf and SQL CPU’

EXEC sp_syscollector_start_collection_set

@collection_set_id = @collection_set_id

go

Because there aren’t any custom reports available for displaying the results of the custom

collection set just defined, you need to run a query in the MDW database to view the

collected Performance Monitor counter values A sample query (which could serve as the

basis for a customer report) is provided in Listing 39.2

Use UnleashedMDW

Go

select spci.path as ‘Counter Path’, spci.object_name as ‘Object Name’,

spci.counter_name as ‘counter Name’, spci.instance_name,

spcv.formatted_value as ‘Formatted Value’,

spcv.collection_time as ‘Collection Time’,

sii.instance_name as ‘SQL Server Instance’

from snapshots.performance_counter_values spcv

inner join

snapshots.performance_counter_instances spci

on spcv.performance_counter_instance_id = spci.performance_counter_id

inner join

core.snapshots_internal si

on si.snapshot_id = spcv.snapshot_id

inner join

core.source_info_internal sii

on sii.source_id = si.source_id

where

sii.collection_set_uid = ‘5D9849BE-1526-4159-99EB-6B0E690C31EA’

order by spcv.collection_time desc

It is possible to create your own custom reports using SQL Server Reporting Services that

query the information for your custom collection sets in the MDW database For more

infor-mation on creating custom reports, see Chapter 53, “SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.”

Data Collector Limitations and Recommendations

Although the Data Collector is a great start to a built-in performance monitoring tool, it

does have some limitations still, which are not wholly unexpected in a product that’s still

early in its release cycle One key limitation is the limited number of built-in data

providers and the reports available It is hoped that future versions will make it easier to

extend the Data Collector to add additional collection sets and reports

If you are defining your own custom Data Collectors, consider these recommendations:

Combine multiple performance counter or query collection items into a single

collection item wherever possible

Combine collection items into a single collection set whenever possible unless you

need separate data retention periods or different collection schedules for the

collec-tion items

If you collect data frequently, it is more efficient to run the collection set in cached

collection mode than starting and stopping a new process every time new data must

be collected In cached collection mode, the collection process runs continuously As

a general rule, if you will be capturing data every five minutes or less, consider using

a collection set that runs in cached collection mode

If you are collecting data less frequently than every five minutes, using noncached

mode is more efficient than leaving a generally idle process running all the time

Although the collection frequency for cached collection sets can be set to run as

fre-quently as every five seconds, be aware that more frequent collection has

corre-spondingly high overhead Always choose the lowest collection frequency that will

meet your needs

Currently, removing data collection after it has been configured is not supported You can

disable data collections but cannot remove them or the SSIS packages and jobs associated

with them after they have been defined Attempting to manually remove data collection

may lead to errors if you try to re-implement data collection in the future In addition,

you should not drop or change the name of the MDW database because all the jobs are

based on the original database name

Another key limitation in the Data Collector is the lack of built-in alerting in the event

that certain performance thresholds are crossed while monitoring the system In contrast,

the SQL Server Utility, which performs more limited monitoring and data capture than

the Data Collector, does provide a threshold and alerting mechanism

SQL Server Utility

SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces a new multiserver management tool named the SQL Server

Utility This new tool takes performance monitoring in SQL Server to the next level by

providing the capability to monitor specific performance metrics for one or more SQL

Server instances in a single view from a single SQL Server instance The performance

infor-mation is captured in a database, and you can view this inforinfor-mation in one convenient

place from within the SSMS environment

Some basic setup is required to start using the SQL Utility You accomplish this basic setup

by using the new Utility Explorer available in SSMS You click View on the SSMS menu bar

and then select Utility Explorer This Utility Explorer has a tree-like structure similar to the

Object Explorer, and it integrates into the SSMS environment in much the same way

NOTE

The option to view the Utility Explorer is not available if you are running a version of

SQL Server prior to SQL Server 2008 R2

The first page displayed when you launch the Utility Explorer is shown in Figure 39.14

This screen outlines all the utility configuration steps and is a handy launch point into

wizards that guide you through the setup process You can also click on the Video link

next to each step to obtain further help on configuring that step

These steps and the details related to configuring the Utility Explorer are covered in more

depth in Chapter 4 This chapter focuses on the performance monitoring capabilities of the

SQL Server Utility and the specific metrics available for collection To enable these

capabili-ties, you only need to do the following:

1 Create a utility control point

2 Connect to an existing UCP

3 Enroll instances of SQL Server into the UCP

The UCP is a central repository for storing configuration information and performance

data for all the instances that have been enrolled in the SQL Server Utility Each SQL

Server Utility has only one UCP that you define by clicking on the first link listed in the

Utility Configurations Steps A wizard guides you through the creation

NOTE

The SQL Server Utility collection set can work side by side with non–SQL Server Utility

collection sets, such as those set up for data collection in the MDW In other words, a

managed instance of SQL Server can be monitored by other collection sets while it is a

member of a SQL Server Utility However, you must disable data collection while the

instance of SQL Server is being enrolled into the SQL Server Utility

In addition, after the instance is enrolled with the UCP, when you restart the non–SQL

Server Utility collection sets, all collection sets on the managed instance upload their

data to the utility management data warehouse (UMDW),sysutility_mdw

After you create the UCP, a new tab named Utility Explorer Content is displayed within the

Utility Explorer (see Figure 39.15) This Utility Explorer window is also called the SQL

Server Utility dashboard This dashboard is the main window for viewing performance

metrics captured by the SQL Server Utility The information displayed on this screen

imme-diately after creating the UCP is the performance information for the UCP itself Each UCP

is automatically a managed instance and thus has performance data collected for it

The following four performance utilization metrics are captured by the SQL Server Utility

and displayed on the Utility Explorer Content screen:

CPU utilized by the SQL Server instance

Database file utilization

Storage volume utilization