1. Smarter Technology
for Better Business
Can you Restore Back to Yesterday?
Always Answer YES!
John Abrams
President and COO
Aspect Consulting, Inc.

2. Remote Monitoring Best Practices:
Agenda
Introductions
The Goals of Monitoring
The Traditional Method
New Centralized Method
The Approach
Aspect Solution

3. Introductions and Qualifications:
Introducing John Abrams…
• President and Founder of Aspect Consulting, Inc.
• Over 20 years of solid project leadership and technical experience in
Data Management, Data Integration, Database Administration.
• Certified Oracle DBA with extensive expertise with logical and
physical DBA activities with both Oracle and SQL Server.
• Currently providing remote database administration and monitoring
services for multiple clients across industries.

4. Introductions and Qualifications:
About Aspect Consulting
 Founded in 1994; specializing in helping
clients increase revenue and decrease
expenses in through:
 Database Administration: Both onsite and
remote. Qualified consultants experienced in
improving database performance and stability.
 Data Management: Data Warehouse
Development; BI Reporting.
 RDBMS Software Installation and
Configuration: Oracle, SQL Server, etc.
 Application Design and Architecture:
Full life cycle development of custom applications,
logical and physical design, coordination of
resources, custom application development.

5. Introductions and Qualifications:
Current Remote DBA Clients

6. Remote Monitoring Best Practices:
The Goals of Monitoring
Databases Always Up
No Missed Backups
Never Run out of Disk Space
No Performance Problems
And… achieve all this in the most
efficient way possible

7. Remote Monitoring Best Practices:
Traditional Monitoring Methods
Utilize Maintenance Plans
Send Both Success and Failure Notifications
Or….no monitoring at all

8. Remote Monitoring Best Practices:
Issues with the Traditional Method:
Missed Backups:
• Maintenance Plans are modified from All User to selected databases, potentially
leaving new databases without backup.
Stopped SQL Agent:
• Agent does not restart and no jobs run—without your knowledge.
Missed Alerts:
• Too many emails. Multiple success and failure notifications get buried in inboxes.
Time Consuming to Set Up and Maintain:
• Monitoring not centralized: difficult to set up, maintain and update.

9. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Gather Data and Alert Process Flow
SQL Statement
Gathers Info
Results Data
Stored in Meta
Database
Stored
Procedure
Reviews
Data and
Sends Alert

10. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Analytical Reporting Process Flow
SQL Statement
Gathers Info
Results Data
Stored in Meta
Database
Stored
Procedure
Reviews
Data and
Analyzes
Generate
Trending
Reports

11. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Centralized Monitoring Components
Create
Multiple
Data Gather
Jobs
Sends
Single
Alert
EmailStore Data in
Result Tables
Stores
Data for
Trending
Reports
Alert Job

12. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
A Better Method:
Why
Centralized
Monitoring is
Better
 Nothing Slips Through the Cracks: you do not
miss when jobs do not run.
 One Single Email: email displays results across
entire environment-rather than multiple emails lost
in your inbox.
 Easily Scalable: Single set of jobs, rather than
deploying the same set of jobs across 100 servers.
 Historical Data Readily Available: data can be
used for trending and alerting.
 Flexible Framework: the sky is the limit—you
can easily expand and extend monitoring jobs.

13. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Two Different Approaches
Single Tier
Approach
• Components running on
single, centralized
Database Server:
• Meta Data to hold
server, connection strings, jobs to
send alerts, results tables, etc.
• Linked servers to connect to all
destination databases.
• Dynamic SQL Generating
Procedure to run jobs, store
results, and send alerts.
Multi Tier
Approach
• Adds App Server and
additional components:
• Same Data Model: adds
additional tables for scheduling
jobs to run on instances.
• Utilizes Windows Service
Agent to connect, execute
SQL, and send alerts.
• Adds Front End to manage job
maintenance, view alerts, and
generate reports

14. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Single-Tiered Approach

15. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Multi-Tiered Approach

16. Centralized Monitoring Solution:
Implement Key Queries
Missed
Backups
Failed
Jobs
Rapid File
Growth
Failed
Jobs
Disk Space
Usage

17. Key Syntax:
SQL Query: Gather Database Backup Info

18. Key Syntax:
SQL Query: Gather Database Failed Jobs

19. Key Syntax:
SQL Query: Gather Database File Size

20. Key Syntax:
SQL Procedure: Gather Disk Free Space
Utilize SQL Hidden Procedure:
EXEC master..xp_fixeddrives

21. Key Syntax:
Detect and Alert SP: Failed Backups/Jobs
 SELECT Last Set of Records from Data Results
Table.
 Use MAX(LASTMOD) value to select
records.
 IF detects SOME records (i.e., where backup
date is older than 24 hours/where job status
indicates failure)
 THEN
 Generate alert email.
 Write records to an Alert table.
Stored
Procedure
Detects failures,
sends alert, and
stores alert history

22. Key Syntax:
Detect and Alert SP: Disk Space/File Size
 SELECT Current Set of Records from Data
Results Table AND Set of Records inserted X
hours (e.g. 24 hours) ago.
 Use MAX(LASTMOD) value to select both
sets of records.
 COMPARE file size/disk space.
 IF detects SOME records where size increased
by X%...
 THEN
 Generate alert email.
 Write records to alert table.
Stored
Procedure
Detects out of range
conditions, sends alert,
and stores alert history

23. The Aspect Monitoring Solution:
Introducing Prodative® WatchDog EMS
WatchDog
EMS
Centralizes
the Right Info
& Alerts Across
Platforms
Capture Key
Data for
Trending &
Forecasting
Easy to
Configure
and Use
Displays info and alerts (e.g.
availability, backup, and file size)via
a web portal; no need to go to the
server for info.
Solution is simple to configure and
use for immediate impact; no need
for full-time staff for support.
Enables you to analyze, predict,
prepare, and address issues before
users are impacted.

24. Introducing Prodative® WatchDog EMS
Features
Monitor Critical Information and Alerts:
 Database Availability
 Missed Backups
 Critical Disk Space & File System Usage
(at both the device and subdirectory level)
 Problematic Indexing and Queries
Monitor
Info & Alerts

25. View Trending Data, Analyze and
Generate Reports
 Track Server and Job Statistics
 Track Disk Space and Database
Growth Over Time
Analyze &
Report
Introducing Prodative® WatchDog EMS
Features

26. Maintain and Extend Monitoring
using Flexible Controls:
Extend and Add Monitoring Jobs
Set Alerting Parameters
Add Reports
Maintain Users
Maintain &
Extend
Introducing Prodative® WatchDog EMS
Features

27. Questions…