If you are reading this, chances are you’re considering a 30 day trial of ‘Foglight for Cross Platform Databases’. Before you do, here are a few tips that will help you get a fully functional Foglight installation up and running quickly without any issues.
Tip 1 – Consider where you are going to install Foglight and what you are going to monitor
As with all software products, Foglight has an installation and deployment guide which gives all the information on how to install and set it up: Foglight 6.1.0 Getting Started Guide. However if you are like me, I don’t always take the time to read ALL the instructions, so here is a quick video that shows what you need before installing: Prerequisites for Installing Foglight. This video also lists the sizing requirements for an all-in-one installation if you are going to be monitoring less than 20 database instances. In Figure 1 below, I’ve also included the sizing requirements for an all-in-one installation.
Figure 1
NOTE: If you are going to monitor Oracle, SQL Server/Azure, or MySQL database instances, you need to decide if you want to setup SQL Performance Investigator (‘SQL PI’ in the Foglight) or just take the default of ‘SQL PERFORMANCE’ monitoring. The difference between the two features is the amount of in-depth analysis you get for query performance, and the sizing requirements needed for Foglight. SQL PI gives an in-depth multi-dimensional view of your workload and query performance, complete with change control tracking, comparison features and advisors. The SQL PI feature requires a separate SQL Server license and repository (database) to hold this performance data. In contrast, SQL PERFORMANCE monitoring is the default option where you will get the top 25 SQL statements showing only their specific workload and performance metrics. More information about sizing requirements can be found in Foglight for Oracle Deployment Guide.
Tip 2 – Download Foglight, Add-Ons, and 'free' DB_Expansion_Pack cartridge
Once you’ve decided on the machine or VM where you are going to install Foglight, you can download the trial version for Foglight for databases. On the download page Foglight for Databases, after you’ve filled out your contact information, you can choose to download the Windows or Linux version of Foglight. If you are planning to monitor SQL Server and/or Oracle database instances, you will want to add-on the download of SQL Optimizer for Oracle and/or SQL Server for the trial (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
Also, if you plan to monitor Oracle or SQL Server, there is an additional ‘free’ Foglight cartridge that you can download which will give you additional customized dashboards and reports from our community: Foglight-database-expansion-pack.
Tip 3 – Install Foglight, SQL Optimizer and the DB_Expansion_Pack cartridge
This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqbb1bBYJC4 will walk you through the Install Wizard of Foglight and show you how to access Foglight via a browser of your choice. Once Foglight is installed, you can set up monitoring for your database instance(s) by choosing the Monitor Wizard within Foglight’s Global Database View. This blog, Set-up-monitoring-for-databases, will walk you through an example of monitoring a SQL Server instance. Additionally, this article will show you all the specific ports that need to be opened on the firewall to allow monitoring of Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and Sybase: Port-to-open-for-monitoring.
If you are monitoring SQL Server and/or Oracle Instances, you’ll want to install SQL Optimizer (for SQL Server and/or Oracle) on the machine or VM where you’ll be accessing Foglight via your browser. SQL Optimizer is a stand-alone executable that can be called from Foglight to quickly find alternative SQL query rewrites and/or suggest more selective indexes to improve query performance. This short video, SQL-Optimizer-For-SQL-Server, shows how Foglight with SQL Optimizer can be used to quickly find and fix your worst performing queries. Also, don’t forget to install the free Foglight-database-expansion-pack cartridge.
Hopefully, these 3 tips will get your trial up and running quickly, so you can start exploring all the monitoring benefits that Foglight has to offer... Happy Monitoring!
