Azure SQL Database Test

Microsoft Windows Azure SQL Database is similar to an on-premises Microsoft SQL Server and extends the SQL Server database capability to the cloud. Azure SQL Database lets you provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud, including many benefits such as, rapid provisioning, scalable, high availability and minimal maintenance overhead.

Maintaining Azure SQL database on the cloud is easy to manage, with less effort, because of the complete infrastructure provided by Microsoft System Center. Though the Azure SQL database can be easily managed and can be included as a resource in a resource group, it is also essential to keep track on the day-to-day performance of the Azure SQL database. To achieve this, administrators may use the Azure Database test.

For each Azure SQL database instance in a resource group, this test reports the current state and also the resource utilization. Using this test, administrators can identify the Azure instance that is improperly sized with CPU, memory and I/O resources.

Target of the Test: A Microsoft Azure Subscription

Agent deploying the test: A remote agent

Output of the test: One set of results for each Resource Group: Azure SQL Database logical server: Azure SQL Database instance of the target Microsoft Azure Subscription being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Subscription ID

Specify the GUID which uniquely identifies the Microsoft Azure Subscription to be monitored. To know the ID that maps to the target subscription, do the following:

  1. Login to the Microsoft Azure Portal.

  2. When the portal opens, click on the Subscriptions option (as indicated by Figure 1).

    Clicking Subscriptions Option

    Figure 1 : Clicking on the Subscriptions option

  3. Figure 2 that appears next will list all the subscriptions that have been configured for the target Azure AD tenant. Locate the subscription that is being monitored in the list, and check the value displayed for that subscription in the Subscription ID column.

    Determining Subscription ID

    Figure 2 : Determining the Subscription ID

  4. Copy the Subscription ID in Figure 2 to the text box corresponding to the SUBSCRIPTION ID parameter in the test configuration page.

Tenant ID

Specify the Directory ID of the Azure AD tenant to which the target subscription belongs. To know how to determine the Directory ID, refer to Configuring the eG Agent to Monitor a Microsoft Azure Subscription Using Azure ARM REST API.

Client ID, Client Password, and Confirm Password

To connect to the target subscription, the eG agent requires an Access token in the form of an Application ID and the client secret value. For this purpose, you should register a new application with the Azure AD tenant. To know how to create such an application and determine its Application ID and client secret, refer to Configuring the eG Agent to Monitor a Microsoft Azure Subscription Using Azure ARM REST API. Specify the Application ID of the created Application in the Client ID text box and the client secret value in the Client Password text box. Confirm the Client Password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

Proxy Host and Proxy Port

In some environments, all communication with the Azure cloud be routed through a proxy server. In such environments, you should make sure that the eG agent connects to the cloud via the proxy server and collects metrics. To enable metrics collection via a proxy, specify the IP address of the proxy server and the port at which the server listens against the Proxy Host and Proxy Port parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none, indicating that the eG agent is not configured to communicate via a proxy, by default.

Proxy Username, Proxy Password and Confirm Password

If the proxy server requires authentication, then, specify a valid proxy user name and password in the Proxy Username and Proxy Password parameters, respectively. Then, confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measures made by the test:
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Status

Indicates the current status of this database instance.

 

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Numeric Value Measure Value
0 Unknown
1 Online

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of this database instance. The graph of this measure however, represents the status of a server using the numeric equivalents onl.

The detailed diagnosis of this measure if enabled, lists the location of the database instance, the edition, the date on which the instance was created, the collation of the database instance, the default secondary location of the instance and the service level objective of the instance.

Maximum database size

Indicates the maximum size allocated to this database instance.

MB

 

CPU utilization

Indicates the average percentage of CPU utilized by this database instance.

Percent

 

Data IO

Indicates the percentage of physical data that was read from this database instance.

Percent

  

Log IO

Indicates the percentage of logs written to this database instance.

Percent

  

Storage utilization

Indicates the percentage of space utilized in this database instance.

Percent

A value close to 100 for this measure denotes that the database instance is running short of space.

Total database size

Indicates the amount of memory utilized by this database instance.

MB

A high value for this measure is a cause of concern, If the value of this measure is close to the Maximum database size, then administrators should either increase the memory limit of the database or free up the available resources.

Workers utilization

Indicates the percentage of worker threads that are currently running on this database instance.

Percent

  

Sessions utilization

Indicates the percentage of sessions that are currently opened and used by the clients on this database instance.

Percent

  

DTU limit

Indicates the maximum number of resources i.e., Database Transaction Units allocated to this database instance.

Number

  

DTU used

Indicates the number of Database Transaction Units utilized by this database instance.

Number

  

DTU consumption

Indicates the percentage of Database Transaction Units utilized by this database instance.

Percent

A value close to 100 is an alert to the administrator to increase the DTUs allocated to the database instance.

Successful connections

Indicates the number of successful connections to this database instance.

Number

  

Failed connections

Indicates the number of connections that failed to establish on this database instance.

Number

  

Connections blocked by firewall

Indicates the number of connections that were terminated on this database instance due to the blocking activity of the firewall.

Number

  

Deadlocked connections

Indicates the number of connections that experienced deadlock on this database instance.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be zero. If a sudden/gradual increase in the value of this measure is noticed, then, administrators should query the database to identify when exactly the deadlocks occurred.

The detailed diagnosis of the Status measure lists the location of the database instance, the edition, the date on which the instance was created, the collation of the database instance, the default secondary location of the instance and the service level objective of the instance.

Azure SQL Database Test Status Measure Detailed Diagnosis

Figure 3 : The detailed diagnosis of the Status measure reported by the Azure SQL Database test