Resource Monitoring - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services - page 811

CHAPTER 41

IN THIS CHAPTER

. DMVs and SchemaRowset s

Resource Monitoring

. Querying DMVs and SQL

Semantics

. Monitoring Connections,

Sessions, and Commands

. Monitoring Server State

M onitoring resources of server applications is one of the
most important duties of a system administrator. For
example, an Analysis Services administrator might need to
pinpoint which query caused an overload of server
resources and take action to cancel such a query. At any
time, an administrator may also need to get a clear picture
of resource consumption and various activities on the
server. No less important is the need for a server administra-
tor to be able to view an overall snapshot of the health of a
server, analyze hardware-utilization trends, and when
armed with this information, plan for future upgrades.

. Using Perfmon Counters

Designers of Analysis Services consider the capability to
monitor resources a high priority, and so that capability has
improved with each release. Through all versions, the
designers have implemented performance monitors.
Analysis Services 2005 introduced trace infrastructure and
integration with SQL Server Profiler (discussed in Chapter
38, “Using Trace and Audit Analysis Services”). Analysis
Services 2005 also supported several basic Discover (also
known as SchemaRow set requests) requests for monitoring
server activities (for example, DISCOVER_SESSIONS and
DISCOVER_CONNECTIONS ).

Analysis Services 2008 introduces an entirely new internal
infrastructure for monitoring server resources. It also
provides a new interface for exposing Analysis Services
management-related information called Dynamic
Management Views (DMVs). Currently, DMVs provide the
most convenient way to track server resources.

In this chapter, we drill down into DMV functionality and
cover a variety of ways to monitor system resources, such as
performance counters.