Consolidating Data Capture with SQLdiag - SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting - page 305

The above message signii es that an older
version of SQLdiag was used to connect to a
SQL Server 2012 instance. When you start
the SQLdiag service, it uses the parameters
specii ed during service registration to collect
the required data based on information
present in the coni guration i le. You can
view events reported by the SQLdiag service
by looking at the Windows Application Event
Log, shown in Figure 11-4.

FIGURE 11-4

Confi guring and Running SQLdiag on a Failover Cluster
When coni guring a data collection package for a SQL Server failover cluster instance with Diag
Manager, you need to remember a few salient points:
➤

Specify the SQL virtual server name as Machine Name.

➤

Specify the SQL Server instance name in the Instance Name text box. For a default failover
cluster instance, enter MSSQLSERVER.

➤

Once you have the package coni gured, it is a best practice to run the SQLdiag data
collection utility from the node that is the current owner of the SQL Server resource.

When running SQLdiag in the default coni guration on a multi-instance failover cluster, the
command window will show numerous errors in red. This is because the default coni guration i le,
SQLDIAG.XML , has not been changed to collect data from a specii c failover cluster instance. SQLdiag
automatically detects the cluster and gathers logs and coni guration information for every virtual
server and instance. Errors are displayed in the command window because SQLdiag attempts to
connect to each instance at every virtual server, resulting in several failures.

In this case, either coni gure the SQLDiag.XML i le with the required target's virtual server name or ignore
these errors. If any errors are displayed, they can be safely ignored. Likewise, the log i le ( ##SQLDIAG
.LOG ) is usually easier to read and interpret to identify errors that can be safely ignored. A few of the
ignorable messages actually have the text “you can usually safely ignore this” enclosed in parentheses.

USING SQLDIAG CONFIGURATION MANAGER

If you recognize the term PSSDIAG, then you have been around the SQL Server world for quite some
time now and have worked on various SQL Server issues that required Microsoft engineers to col-
lect diagnostic data using the PSSDIAG tool. You would also be familiar with saving PSSDIAG in a
secure location and going through the XML coni guration i le to review the additional data that the
PSSDIAG tool collects. In 2011, the Microsoft SQL Server Support team released a public version
of the coveted Coni guration Manager used for setting up data collection using SQLdiag, available
on the CodePlex website, Microsoft's free open source project hosting site, under the name Pssdiag/
Sqldiag Manager . This means that you no longer need to painstakingly modify XML coni guration
i les in a text editor. This tool is provided on an as-is basis by Microsoft. This tool provides you with
the capability of using a graphical user interface to coni gure your data collection rather than having
to painstakingly modify a XML coni guration i le.