SQLFrontline

SQLFrontline Freemium Edition

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I’ve recently changed what I was calling the ‘Demo’ version of SQLFrontline, to a ‘Freemium’ model. The demo version only displayed one recommendation result in each of the four severity categories (Critical, High, Medium, Info).

The free version does not include all the features of the paid premium version obviously, but still provides some useful recommendations, providing advice on 40 checks.

Both use the same lightweight metadata collection.

The Free Version:

  • Performs 40 checks (out of 350+), but doesn’t show all affected objects if a check results in a recommendation
  • Deletes all collected metadata after collection
  • No reminder list is shown
  • Does not display a list of issues that are no longer present since last collection
  • Sends a single email for all servers
  • No database specific recommendations are made
  • Can only collect metadata for a limited number of servers

The Premium Version:

  • 350+ checks performed across the categories of Configuration, Reliability, Performance, Security, Server Info, Table/Index Design
  • New checks are constantly being added
  • Reminder list of recommendations that have been made previously and not yet fixed
  • List of issues fixed compared to the last collection
  • Can choose how long to store collected metadata, so that point in time reports can be made, along with automated estimates of DB growth over time
  • Can send 1 email per server or a single email for all servers
  • Ability to ‘mute’ recommendations on an individual basis, or entire check (for non-critical checks)
  • No practical limit on the number of servers

If you want to try it out, click this link to request a free access token.

Once you have an access token, here’s how to run it: How to run SQLFrontline

SQLFrontline: Snapshot SQL Server Configuration

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Taking a snapshot of a SQL Server’s configuration, enables you to see what changes over time. It can also provide a record of the date changes were made, so that you can correlate if problems occur and determine if a change might be to blame. It’s also a great way to document any fixes you have made.

An example: some months ago I had generated a SQLFrontline report against a server I had been asked to look at and update to industry best practices. Some time after the work had been done, I re-ran the report and discovered that someone had turned on SQL Server’s ‘Priority Boost’ setting since the previous data collection! (You should never turn this setting on):

“Raising the priority too high may drain resources from essential operating system and network functions, resulting in problems shutting down SQL Server or using other operating system tasks on the server.”

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/configure-windows/configure-the-priority-boost-server-configuration-option

SQLFrontline currently performs 310+ checks looking at reliability, performance, configuration, security, database design and emails you the results, with clear instructions on what needs attention.

SQLFrontline: Server Overview

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Have you just been given a bunch of SQL servers that you’re now responsible for? Do you want to get a really fast overview of each server’s hardware, SQL server version and service pack update, configuration, database sizes and usage, performance problems, weak passwords?

Want the results emailed to you in a prioritised, easy to read format?

SQLFrontline can do this with just a few commands. Behind the scenes it runs hundreds of lightweight, metadata collection queries against all the specified servers/databases (no user data is collected). SQLFrontline currently performs 300+ checks across the categories of Reliability, Performance, Configuration, Security and Database Design

SQLFrontline Case Study: Failing Backups

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Over the course of 20 years dealing with SQL server, I’ve come across failing backups more times than I’d like to recall. (And that’s not counting the times there were no backups setup in the first place!)

In the case of failing backups, backups were set up, checked to be working, and then at a later date subsequently failed to notify of backup failures for several reasons (non-exhaustive):

  1. Configuration on the SMTP server changed, such as the allowed IP white list for forwarding, permissions changed, or the actual SMTP server changed.
  2. Virus scanner configuration changed preventing emails to be sent.
  3. AD group permissions changed or SQL server service identities changed.

In all these cases, backups were failing but no one was being alerted and no one was periodically checking the SQL agent logs.

SQLFrontline checks for no backups in the last 7 days, backups done without compression (compressed backups take up less space obviously, but are also faster to backup and restore), backups done without verifying page checksums, and backups done without encryption (if your version of SQL Server supports it). It also checks that you are periodically running DBCC CHECKDB to maintain database integrity, and whether any data corruption has been detected (automatically repaired or otherwise).

SQLFrontline currently performs 62 Reliability checks on each SQL Server you monitor, with 300+ checks performed across the categories of Reliability, Performance, Security, Configuration and Database Design.

Side Note: Another thing to consider is, do you delete older backups BEFORE making sure the latest backup succeeded? If so, you might end up with no recent local backups at all when your backup job starts failing… If you use Ola Hallegren’s maintenance solution scripts, this check is performed correctly for you.

SQLFrontline Case study: NUMA Configuration

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A little while ago, I was doing SQL Server consultancy work for a large organisation here in Perth, Western Australia. They had a sizeable physical SQL Server machine for their business reporting needs: 48 cores (4 sockets of 12 cores each and 384GB of RAM).

I discovered that despite the company having paid for Enterprise licenses for 48 cores, the licensing had not been applied, and so only 40 cores were actually in use! It had been that way for almost 2 years…

In fact, the situation is worse than it first seems: not only were 20% of the cores not being used, but the cores were partitioned into 4 NUMA groups, having 3 groups of 12 cores and one group of 4 cores. With the workload distributed equally over the 4 NUMA groups, this was obviously very unbalanced, and detrimental to the server’s throughput. 

In addition, ‘max degree of parallelism’ was set to its default value, which means that a parallel query that spans the 12 core and 4 core NUMA groups will very likely have threads waiting in the 12 core NUMA group and possibly incur foreign memory accesses.

This is just one of the NUMA configuration checks that SQLFrontline runs.

How can SQLFrontline help me as a DBA, Accidental DBA or Developer?

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If you’re doing a good job as a DBA you want to have an in-depth knowledge of all the SQL Servers you are responsible for. That includes the SQL Server hardware, configuration and performance. You want to be pro-active and not swamped. You want active notifications of when things change or fail, and ideally you would like this documented, so you can show it to your boss!

Rather than you having to remember to run checks on servers (and when you get busy, it’s easy to miss something), SQLFrontline does this for you on a scheduled basis (usually once per day, but configurable). You don’t have to install any software or configure any local repositories.

As an accidental DBA (despite reading blogs and investing time learning SQL Server) you might not be aware of everything required to make SQL Server reliable and perform well. SQLFrontline embodies SQL Server industry best practices. Not only does it notify you of problems found, but it also explains the problem and shows you how to fix them.

As a developer, you want to be made aware of any design decisions that could affect performance, and/or track down any existing performance/blocking issues.

I use SQLFrontline in my day-to-day SQL Server consultancy business. It generally takes me less than an hour to do what would have previously taken over a week (running and documenting the results of over 300 checks can be time consuming). I recently used SQLFrontline to efficiently diagnose and fix all the SQL Servers for an entire business, making them standardised and industry best practice in the process.

SQLFrontline: a Diagnostic and Monitoring Service for all your SQL Servers

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If you’re an overworked DBA (or a DBA that wants to be responsible for more servers and databases), an accidental DBA, or a developer wanting to get a better handle on your SQL Server and databases, SQLFrontline can help you do that.

SQLFrontline is a lightweight, low impact, nothing to install diagnostic tool for all SQL Server versions 2008+. It carries out over 300+ checks (more checks are added frequently), across the areas of security, reliability, performance, configuration and database design. Issues are organised by server and by priority (Critical, High, Medium, Info).

It compares and notifies you what was fixed between data collections. It has a built in reminder list for high priority items that haven’t been fixed over time.

It even has a demo mode, so you can try it out for free.

Here’s an excerpt from an example notification email: