MSSQL Addendum pack

 

Time to tune MSSQL alerts!
Time to tune MSSQL alerts!

The ‘MSSQL Addendum pack’ wouldn’t be possible without Brandon Pires contributions.  Brandon dealt with my many questions to better alert!  If you need more background, check the ‘why addendum pack’ post.

Quick Download(s)

2012+ https://github.com/theKevinJustin/MSSQLAddendum

 

Capabilities

The pack is based on the SQL engineering blog and program team making multiple updates per year for SQL monitoring.  The addendum creates two groups for dev/test and notification/subscription modeling.  Second, the overrides, man there are a bunch! aid consumption of real issues.   Lastly, most environments should be SQL 2016+, as the 2012R2 EOL/EOSL is quickly approaching in October!

MSSQL groups defined in the Addendum pack
MSSQL groups defined in the Addendum pack

MSSQL group discoveries require updates to be applicable to environment

 

Tailor addendum

First, the Addendum pack requires the MSSQL packs MUST be installed.  The addendum is based on the MSSQL 2016+ version agnostic is currently supported, as the 2012,2012R2 products are near end of support.

Find/Replace the variables as needed:

Example    ##TESTSERVER##|##DEVSERVER##

Save file

 

Overrides

Addendum pack contains discovery, monitor, and rule overrides to tune MSSQL to CSA (old PFE/CE/CSAe Microsoft Field engineer recommendations), to match the health model reducing critical ‘wake me up in the middle of the night’ alerts.

Partial snapshot of MSSQL overrides in the pack
Partial snapshot of MSSQL overrides in the pack

Import

Download pack, and save to your environment

Import into SCOM

Enjoy!

 

 

MSSQL Addendum references

MSSQL Engineering blog and old post here

SQL Releases TechCommunity here

Engineering team latest management pack, TechCommunity release v7.2.0.0

Import ‘gotcha’ importing new custom functionality blog

SQL on Windows Addendum pack

It’s spring time; time to tune the SQL carb!

 

Carbs are way less easy to find these days, but I’ve been busy tuning the SQL agnostic pack (MSSQL on Windows).

 

Tuning the SQL Agnostic pack would be far less successful without expert help.  My thanks to Brandon Pires – MCS SQL Consultant who helped provide a SQL DBA perspective.   Brandon’s LinkedIn profile

 

Always grab an expert, and for SQL, it’s a DBA.  If you’re new to SCOM, most product teams provide their management packs.  SCOM PFE’s build addendum packs to improve a pack (from our perspective).  Addendum packs make the a pack stronger, for an improved customer experience.  I’m not complaining at what the pack delivers.  The SQL Team is awesome for taking user feedback and making improvements quarterly!

 

Background:

Initially this journey started out with Tim McFadden disabling the duplicate rules/monitors in the SQL MP’s (here).

After talking with Tim and Kevin H, I set out to clean up the SQL version specific packs to remove bloat by creating the version specific OFF packs.  The OFF packs disabled the plethora of SQL performance counters (see MP bloat blog here).

With the SQL Agnostic packs (thank God!), I wanted to deliver an addendum pack to tune the SQL alerts/health for what SQL PFE/Consultants recommended for an improved out of the box experience (OoBE).

 

 

MP Version history
v1.0.0.0 24 Feb 2020 Override to enable SQL Monitoring
v1.0.0.1 24 Feb 2020 Override pack cleanup to human readable format
v1.0.0.2  2 Mar 2020 Overrides for severities and SQL CPU samples
v1.0.0.3  2 Mar 2020 Overrides for SQL rules for warning
v1.0.0.4  4 Mar 2020 Completed overrides for SQL warning rules

v1.0.0.5  1 Apr 2020 Updated rules for backup failures when customer uses Netbackup vs. SQL agent/scheduled tasks

v1.0.0.6  9 Apr 2020 Created groups for seed discovery Test/Dev and Prod; excluded EXPRESS, disabled Securables monitor

v1.0.0.7 15 Apr 2020 Updated pack name to include ‘SQL Server’.

Updated AddendumGroupGUIDUpdate to include RegEx pattern replace
AddendumGroupGUIDUpdate will version pack to v1.0.0.7 for group GUID and regex changes

 

 

Please feel free to download the zip file, which includes the XLS for review of what was updated.

My website download

 

 

Additional References

The Agnostic OFF Pack to turn off the performance rules (found here)

The old SQL version specific OFF packs for the performance counters can be found here.

TechNet Gallery download here