Creating a SQL Server Connection in Foglight

Welcome to Foglight Video Solutions. This video will cover how to add a new SQL server agent to a SQL server-based PR repository. Please review the prerequisites and requirements as a setup reference and also consult the Foglight Documentation Guide, mentioned below. To add an agent, log into the Foglight web console with your Foglight user. Click on Monitor and select SQL Server. To monitor SQL server instance setup GUI should display in a simple format and request a set of needed configurations for monitoring a single instance. At the top of the panel is a link to provide an option to discover multiple SQL server instances. Agent Manager Host specifies the selected agent manager and usually defaults to the agent manager that has the least amount of instances that are already deployed against it. This helps with load balancing and sizing that affects performance. Click the box to change the agent manager host, if desired. To Connection Details is where to specify the name of the SQL server insist to monitor. To monitor default instance, use only the host name and the server field. The instance-naming convention uses the host name backslash instance format. In a cluster environment, insert the virtual host name of the SQL server host in the server name field. During this demonstration, we'll stage monitoring against a named instance with the SQL server default port of 1433. When no port is specified, the wizard will use the port that's provided by the SQL browser service, in which case the service must be started. There are two methods for login connections. The first is to specify the login credentials by a SQL Server Windows Active Directory or Azure Active Directory authentication. These are the same connection methods used to access the SQL Server Management Studio. So if the user can connect via SQL Server Management Studio, they should be able to establish login through this wizard, assuming there's no connection issues, such as a firewall blocking the port. The second is to log in using the Active Directory account running the agent manager. To use the Active Directory account running your agent manager will connect with the login account that is used to run the Foglight Agent Manager. This is for installations where the Foglight Agent Manager is installed locally on the database server. To use SSL checkbox can be enabled when the SQL server instance requires a secure connection. At the bottom of the panel is an option to change the alarm sensitivity and to either automatically generate a database agent name based on the server or instance name or to override the setting with a custom agent name. The operating system checkbox allows the database agent to collect OS metrics. Clicking the link provides an option to either enter the login credentials for the remote host or to select a previously configured credential stored in a lockbox of the MS. OS metrics are required when a RAM or WNI connectivity to collect windows metrics or an SSH connection for Linux monitoring. Enter the OS log credentials or select the radio button to use the same account to monitor the SQL server and then click Apply. The collective VM statistics checkbox provides the ability to obtain VM statistics directly from the VM server host. We will now enable the SQL PI extension for this agent by clicking the SQL PI checkbox. A pop-up will detail the system requirements. After reviewing the information, click Accept to continue with the installation. The next pop-up may list prerequisites for the SQL PI repository server and the available agent managers for SQL PI agents to be installed on. Select an agent manager. Then, click the Apply button. If prompted, we will now specify the server name, authentication type, username, and password. If the default instance is used, then it does not have to be included with the server name. Adding the port number is optional. Then, click Next. Another pop-up to enter the SQL PI repository settings may appear. A new PI repository database can be created in this step. The database name is pre-filled with a unique name. Adding a primary file group location and the transaction log location is optional, or it'll be taken from the SQL server instance settings. The user must, however, fill in a specific windows folder location on the server where the SQL PI instance is located to hold one minute data. This may be on a separate drive from the other SQL server files. Alternatively, a radio button's available to use an existing PI repository database for SQL server with a pull-down menu to select a database. After this panel's been filled in, click Finish to continue. An additional pop-up may appear to confirm that a new PI repository for SQL servers should be created. Once all of the connection details are in place, click Monitor. The configuration will start up. If a grant privileges box pops up, a grant script is available to run directly in the instance to grant the necessary privileges, or enter sysadmin account to execute grant scripts. Once completed, a pop-up will indicate that the agent's been created, and there's a choice of adding another database, in which it'll take you back to the setup screen, or click Finish. The new agent's now created. After a couple of minutes collection time, the dashboard will become populated with data. To learn more about Foglight for Databases, visit us at support.quest.com.