14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, Microsoft has made available for download a new version of its System Center Monitoring Pack for SQL Server.
Available for download for free, the new Monitoring pack for SQL Server is meant to provide the features for Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Operations Manager 2012 to discover SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012.
The tool was designed for the monitoring of SQL Server components including database engine instances, databases, and SQL Server agents.
The pack delivers monitoring of performance availability and configuration of these components. It was also meant for performance data collection and default thresholds.
The management pack also comes with dashboard views and diagram views, as well as with knowledge with embedded inline tasks, and with views to enable near real-time diagnosis and resolution of detected issues.
According to Microsoft, customers can easily integrate the monitoring of SQL Server components into service-oriented monitoring scenarios.
The newest features of the pack include:
AlwaysOn Monitoring
- Automatically discover and monitor availability groups, availability replicas, and availability databases for hundreds of computers. - Health roll-up from availability database to availability replicas. - Detailed knowledge with every critical health state to enable faster resolution to a problem.
Seamless integration with Policy based management (PBM) - Auto-discover custom PBM polices targeting AlwaysOn and database components. - Rollup of health of policy execution within the SQL monitoring pack under extended health.
Support for Mirroring and Replication Monitoring (only applicable to SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 version of management pack) - Discover mirroring databases, witness, and mirroring group. - Monitor database mirror state, database mirror witness state, and mirroring partners’ state. - Custom diagram view to visually represent the primary and the mirrored databases. - Approximately twenty rules to detect replication events. - Improved Freespace monitoring with mount point support
The System Center Monitoring Pack for SQL Server comes with support for operating systems including Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, and requires System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and System Center Operations Manager 2012, as well as SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 or 2012.
System Center Monitoring Pack for SQL Server 6.3.173.0 is available for download from Softpedia as well, via this link.