Managing SQL Server Jobs
This great monitoring feature helps you maintain control over all your SQL Server based Jobs
The Database Monitoring Agent automatically discovers all your Jobs and then creates one Resource per Job. Each Job returns its evaluated state which therefore can be monitored from the use of Monitor Views and external alerts can be pushed using any of the installed : Alarm Plugins.
Microsoft SQL Server based Jobs are grouped by the Category SQL Jobs
Example of a Monitor View filtered by the 'SQL Jobs' category
- Your Jobs within the Microsoft SQL Server instance(s) are listed in Nodinite as resources where the name of the SQL Job becomes the Resource name.
What are the key features for Monitoring SQL Jobs?
- State Evaluation - Monitors and evaluates the state
- Actions - Support for the execution of Remote Actions
NOTE: SQL Express and Azure SQL Databases does not have an SQL Agent and the SQL Jobs feature is therefore not available for those databases.
What is evaluated for SQL Jobs?
The different possible evaluated states for your SQL Jobs are provided in the table below:
| State | Status | Description | Actions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unavailable | Resource not available | Evaluation of the 'SQL Job' is not possible either due to network or security-related problems | Review prerequisites | |
| Error | Error state raised | SQL Job reports that one or more major problems/errors were detected by raising an exception Job failed on last run A job that has not run within specified time interval A job that runs for a longer duration than specified |
Edit | |
| Warning | Warning state raised | SQL Job reports that one or more minor problems were detected by raising an exception with state warning A disabled job A job not running A job that has never run A job that has not run within specified time interval A job that runs for a longer duration than specified |
Edit | |
| OK | Online | SQL Job is valid, executes and reports that no problems were detected | Edit |
TIP: The evaluated state may be reconfigured using the Expected State functionality that exists on every Resource within Nodinite.
How do I configure the thresholds for SQL Jobs?
SQL Jobs are enabled when the checkbox Enable monitoring of SQL Jobs is checked from within the Remote Configuration dialogue for the Database Monitoring Agent. When checked, all SQL Jobs in the SQL Instance are monitored.
There are two different ways to configure thresholds for SQL Jobs:
- Global configuration
- Specific configuration
1. Global configuration
From the Jobs tab the global settings are configured.
Example of the Jobs tab with global monitoring thresholds
You can then edit the available properties.
- Allowed Timespan for last evaluated run, expressed using timespan property: (days.hours:minutes:seconds)
- Warning: Allowed time before state evaluates as Warning
- Error: Allowed time before state evaluates as Error
- Duration for last evaluated run, expressed in seconds (any negative value disables the check)
- Warning: Allowed time before the job is evaluated as in the Warning state
- Error: Allowed time before the job is evaluated as in the Error state
- Description, a user-friendly description for the Job
The Application - for global thresholds are inherited from the SQL Instance being monitored.
2. Specific configuration
Managing specific SQL Jobs is covered in the Edit thresholds remote action section below.
Actions
The Database Monitoring Agent category SQL Jobs has support for the following Remote Actions:
- View history
- Start
- Start at step
- Stop
- Enable
- Disable
- Edit thresholds
List of available Remote Actions for SQL Jobs
View history
View the last n runs for the selected job. The number of available logs is managed within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
To conserve bandwidth and improve performance the list is presented using pagination.
The list can be updated by simply clicking the Reload button in the upper right corner, without the need to reopen the form.
Start Job
The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Start. Click Yes to Start the Job.
Example of confirmation dialogue to start job
Review the View history to manually get the outcome.
Start at step
The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Start at step.
Example of SQL Job with multiple steps
Click the Start on this step button to Start the Job at selected step. You will then be prompted with the following dialogue:
Example of confirmation dialogue to start job at selected step
Review the View history to manually get the outcome.
Stop
Click the Stop button to stop the Job. You will then be prompted with the following dialogue:
Example of confirmation dialogue to stop a running SQL Job
Review the View history to manually get the outcome.
Enable
The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Enable. Click Yes to Enable the Job.
Example of confirmation dialogue to enable a disabled SQL Job
Disable
The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Disable Click Yes to Disable the Job.
Example of confirmation dialogue to disable an enabled SQL Job
Edit thresholds
The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Edit thresholds.
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.
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)
- Expected State - Checked if the job is expected to be enabled
Save
You must click on the Save button or click on the Save and close button for any changes to be written to the agent and take effect on next synchronisation.
NOTE: Depending on the synchronisation interval set for the agent, there might be a delay before the Web Client reflects upon the change. You can choose to force the agent to synchronize from the configuration of the Monitoring Agents.
Save and close, save, and close the dialogue.
Cancel, close the dialogue without saving any changes.
Next Step
Related
Database Monitoring Agent
SQL Categories
Resources
Monitoring Agents
Monitor Views