- 6 minutes to read

Managing Monitoring of SQL Backups

Stay in control of your SQL Server database backups with the Nodinite Database Monitoring Agent. Protect against data loss, ensure disaster recovery readiness, and maintain compliance with backup policies.

Why Monitor SQL Server Backups?

Database backups are your last line of defense against data loss. Outdated or missing backups expose organizations to catastrophic risks:

  • Unrecoverable data loss – Hardware failures, corruption, or ransomware attacks with no recent backup mean permanent data loss
  • Business disruption – Recovery Point Objective (RPO) violations lead to hours or days of lost transactions
  • Compliance failures – Regulatory requirements (SOX, HIPAA, GDPR) mandate regular, tested backups
  • Ransomware vulnerability – Without verified backups, organizations are forced to pay ransoms or lose data
  • Extended downtime – Incomplete or failed backups extend recovery time during incidents

Without proactive monitoring, teams discover backup failures only during disaster recovery—when it's too late.

What Does Nodinite Monitor?

The Database Monitoring Agent actively monitors backups for all databases on your configured SQL Server instances, providing:

✅ Backup age tracking – Alert when backups exceed Warning or Error age thresholds ✅ Missing backup detection – Identify databases that have never been backed up ✅ Multi-instance visibility – Monitor backup status across all SQL Server instances from one dashboard ✅ Customizable thresholds – Set global defaults and override per-database for production vs. test environments ✅ Automated alerts – Get notifications via email, SMS, Teams, or any [Alarm Plugin][] before backups become critically outdated ✅ Remote management – Edit thresholds and investigate issues directly from Nodinite

When to Use SQL Backup Monitoring?

Use this feature when you need to:

  • Ensure disaster recovery readiness – Validate that all production databases have recent backups
  • Meet compliance requirements – Demonstrate backup policies are enforced for regulatory audits
  • Enforce backup SLAs – Alert when backups don't meet RPO commitments (e.g., 24 hours for production)
  • Empower operations teams – Enable non-DBAs to monitor backup health without SQL Server access
  • Track backup coverage – Identify databases missing from backup schedules
  • Support 24/7 operations – Automate alerts for backup failures during off-hours

How It Works

The Database Monitoring Agent actively monitors backups for all databases on your configured SQL Database Instances. Each monitored database appears in Nodinite as a unique Resource, providing real-time state evaluation. You can monitor backup status using Monitor Views and trigger external alerts through any installed Alarm Plugins.

Size checks for SQL Databases are grouped by the Category SQL Backup.
Category - SQL Backup
Here's an example of a Monitor View filtered by the 'SQL Backup' category.

  • Your SQL Backups within the SQL databases(s) are listed in Nodinite as resources where the name of the SQL Database becomes the Resource name.
graph LR subgraph "Configuration" c["fal:fa-code 1 SQL Database"] --> r[fal:fa-lightbulb 1 Resource] end

This diagram illustrates how each SQL Database is mapped to a monitored Resource in Nodinite for backup tracking.

What are the key features for Monitoring SQL Database Size Checks?

  • State Evaluation – Instantly monitors and evaluates the backup status of each SQL database
  • Remote Actions – Execute Remote Actions to resolve backup issues directly from Nodinite
  • Automated Alerts – Receive notifications for outdated, missing, or failed backups
  • Customizable Thresholds – Set global or specific backup age thresholds for warnings and errors
  • Centralized Visibility – View all backup states in a single dashboard for rapid response

What is evaluated for SQL Database Backup?

The different possible evaluated states for your SQL Backup are provided in the table below:

State Status Description Actions
Unavailable Resource not available Evaluation of the 'Last backup' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems Review prerequisites
Error Error state raised The database backup is over (older) than the error threshold value Edit
Warning Warning state raised The database backup is over (older) than the warning threshold value
Backup has never been taken (Missing backup)		 Edit
OK Online The last backup taken is below threshold values Edit

Tip

The System Administrator can override the Monitoring state using the Expected State feature on the Resource within Nodinite.

How do I configure the thresholds for SQL Backups?

Monitoring of SQL Backups is enabled when the checkbox Enable feature Monitoring of SQL backups is checked from within the Remote Configuration dialogue for the Database Monitoring Agent. When checked,
all databases for the SQL instance provided by the ConnectionString are monitored.

There are two different ways to configure thresholds for the category SQL Backup:

Global configuration

From the SQL databases tab the global settings are configured. You then need to click on the Backup tab.
Configure backups tab (6.1.0.0)
Here's an example of the Backups tab with global monitoring thresholds for backup related checks.

You can then edit the available properties.

  • Enable Monitoring of SQL Backups – When checked, Monitor for SQL Server backups is enabled, otherwise it is not
  • Warning Time Span – The longest allowed timespan for warning on last backup
  • Error Time Span – The longest allowed timespan for error on last backup
  • Description – user-friendly description for resource

Info

Timespan format is (days.hours.minutes.seconds)

Actions

The Database Monitoring Agent categories SQL Backups and SQL Backups - Specific have support for remote actions. The following Actions exist:

  • Edit thresholds
    Remote Actions
    Here's an example of Remote Actions.

Edit thresholds

The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Edit thresholds.
edit
Here's an example of dialogue changing global thresholds to specific thresholds.

The Default values are set using Remote Configuration. Review the Global configuration section of this document for further details.

Note

Category is changed to 'SQL Backups - Specific' when the threshold values are modified.

The time of the last backup taken presents if it exists, else the text will be Missing backup.

The same properties as described in the Global configuration are available and in addition the following can be managed:

  • Application – a way of grouping resources (by default the Application used for the SQL Instance is re-used)
  • Description – Short description for this specific size check

Save

You must click 'Save' or 'Save and close' for changes to persist. The new settings/thresholds are evaluated on the next synchronization.
Save and Close buttons
Here's an example of the Save options.

Note

Depending on the synchronization interval set for the agent, there might be a delay before the Web Client reflects upon the change. You can force the agent to synchronize the Configuration for all Nodinite Monitoring Agents.

Save and close, save, and close the dialogue.

Cancel, closes the dialogue without saving any changes.

Next Step

Add or manage Monitor View

Database Monitoring Agent
Monitoring Agents
Monitor Views
Resources
SQL Categories