SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings

Applies to: SQL Server, Windows/Hyper-V, SSAS, VMware, Azure SQL Database, Azure Synapse Data Pool, and APS target types.

Introduction

The SQL Sentry monitoring service is a Windows service installed on one or more servers in your enterprise. All settings are stored in the SQL Sentry database. The SQL Sentry monitoring service does the following for each watched instance:

Collects event history
Collects event status
Collects event performance information
Sends notifications
Performs various other tasks related to event management

Note: The various event metadata and history information collected by the SQL Sentry monitoring service is stored in a SQL Server database. The number of instances that can be watched in your environment is controlled by the number of licenses you have purchased.

The SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings can be accessed by selecting Global Settings from the Navigator pane. By default, the monitoring service settings open to the SMTP Configuration tab.

The SQL Sentry monitoring service settings are global in nature, applying to the entire SQL Sentry installation. They control the behavior and function of all installed SQL Sentry monitoring services connected to the active SQL Sentry database.

Note: Make changes to any desired setting, and then select from the toolbar to save your setting globally.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Alerting

Email SMTP Configuration

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Alerting

Additional Information: For information about configuring an SMTP server, see the SMTP Configuration topic.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Alerting Email Format You have the option to have email alerts formatted as HTML instead of Plain Text.

SNMP Configuration

SQL Sentry Montoring Service Settings Alerting SNMP

Configure SNMP settings by selecting SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Alerting tab > SNMP settings.

SNMP Settings

Setting	Description
Hostname	Determines where the SNMP trap is sent. The default setting (BROADCAST) sends the trap to all managers. Individual managers can be sent the traps using the individual hostname or IP address. Note: Managers included in the BROADCAST group and who are also listed individually receive two messages for each occurrence.
Port	The port used for transmission of the traps (Default 162).
SNMP MIBS	SNMP MIBS defaults are found in a folder called SNMP MIBs C:\Program Files\SentryOne\18.0\SNMP MIBs
SNMP Version	The version of SNMP to be used (1, 2C, or 3)
Enabled	This checkbox determines whether or not the trap is enabled.

SNMP v1/2C Configuration

Setting	Description
Community	Enter the community.

SNMP v3 Configuration

Setting	Description
Engine ID	Enter the Engine ID. Note: You can also use Generate button to get this value.
Username	Enter the username
Privacy Algorithm	Select the appropriate privacy algorithm
Privacy Password	Enter the privacy password
Hash Algorithm	Select the appropriate hash algorithm (MD5, SHA, or None).
Hash Password	Enter the password.

Note: You can configure SQL Sentry to send SNMP traps to Splunk.

Splunk is an important tool that aggregates logs and events efficiently and allows you to aggregate disparate data sources into a comprehensive overview of your environment. SQL Sentry utilizes its conditions and actions system where conditions represent the expert knowledge required to determine if something is actionable, and actions provide the flexibility to act on that event. Set up SQL Sentry and Splunk to complement one another’s functionality within your enterprise.

Configure SQL Sentry to send SNMP traps to Splunk by completing the following:

Configure devices to send SNMP traps.
Write the traps to a file for Splunk to index.
Monitor the file with Splunk.

Additional Information: For more information about SQL Sentry's functionality with Splunk, see Enterprise Integration: SQL Sentry, Splunk, and SNMP.

Maintenance Window

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Alerting Maintenance Window

Maintenance window settings allow you to specify a time frame where Failsafe notifications are disabled while daily maintenance activity takes place. This prevents excessive notifications that may occur if a watched instance is temporarily inaccessible during these activities. Log actions are still enabled during this window, but any execute or send actions won't fire inside the maintenance window. The maintenance window specified in this view, under the SQL Sentry monitoring service node, applies to activity on the SQL Sentry database itself.

Note: To specify a maintenance window for watched instances / target(s), select Settings tab from the Settings pane for that instance / target.

PowerShell

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Alerting PowerShell

Configure PowerShell Execution settings by selecting SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Alerting tab > PowerShell.

PowerShell Execution Account

Setting	Description
Username	The global account that the Execute PowerShell Command can be run with.
Password	The password for the Execute PowerShell global account.

Additional Information: For more information about PowerShell, see the PowerShell topic.

Additional Information: For information about setting up a PowerShell account, the benefits of PowerShell, and PowerShell Security, see the PowerShell MSDN article.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Storage

There are monitoring service settings that control the retention of certain types of data within the SQL Sentry database. Access these settings by selecting SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Storage tab.

Storage Setting	Description	Image
Keep Event History For	Controls the retention of Event Manager data (Event History data). Note: The default value is 30 days.
Keep Performance History For	Specifies how long Performance Advisor Top SQL, Blocking SQL, and Deadlock data is retained in the SQL Sentry database. This settings also applies to Event Manager General Performance Monitoring data. Note: The default value is 15 days.
Keep SQL Sentry Message History For	This setting determines how many days worth of Action Log information is stored. Note: The default value is 365 days.
Keep Index Usage History For	Controls the retention of Index Usage statistics counter data in Fragmentation Manager. Note: The default value is 365 days, the minimum permitted value is one, and the maximum permitted value is 396.

Note: Top SQL, Blocking SQL, and Deadlocks data is also converted to the native Event Calendar format and then is retained according to the SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Storage tab> Keep Event History For setting.

Note: All other performance data, including data displayed on the performance analysis Dashboard, isn't affected by Monitoring Service settings. This data is subject to a high performance storage scheme and internal rollup structure. For more information, see the Dashboard Resolutions/Retention and Data Capacity Planning topics.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Forecasts

See the Monitoring Service Settings section of the Forecasting article for details and instructions.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Privacy

The following settings are available in SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Privacy tab:

	Displays the End User License Agreement.
	Allows SQL Sentry to collect anonymous information about how you use our software. Un-check the box to stop telemetry. For more information about telemetry, see the telemetry topic.

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings Advanced

SQL Sentry Monitoring Service Settings > Advanced tab is where you configure settings for the process that polls watched instances for an active event status.

Setting	Description
Live Event Monitor Polling Interval	Controls how often the SQL Sentry monitoring service polls each watched instance for event status information. The polling operations used are lightweight; however, the value can be increased to reduce network activity associated with the SQL Sentry monitoring service. Note: The default Polling Interval is 15 seconds.
History Polling Interval	Controls how often the SQL Sentry Monitoring Service polls each watched instance for event history information. Note: The default value is 30 seconds.
SQL Sentry Message Polling Interval	Controls how often the SQL Sentry Monitoring Service’s internal message queue is checked and messages are processed. Increasing this setting effectively lengthens the time between when a condition is met and any associated actions are triggered. Important: Adjusting the setting up or down affects overhead on the SQL Sentry Monitoring Service only, and won’t affect network or monitoring overhead for watched instances. Note: The default value is five seconds.
Event Chains are Only Affected by History Within	Tells chaining how far back in the history to look when determining whether history entries should affect chain status. This setting is used as a fail safe measure if for some reason you were unable to synchronize with a server for a specified period of time. Whenever the server comes back online and SQL Sentry is able to re-synchronize history information, any history that's older than the time specified by this setting won’t be used to impact chain execution status. Note: The default value is one day and the minimum value is ten minutes. Note: It's recommended to contact support.sentryone.combefore changing the default value.
Do Not Fire Actions for History Older Than	If messages were unable to be collected for some time this setting keeps actions from being fired for these older message. Note: The default value is two hours.
Trigger Run Missed Condition When Scheduling Agent is Offline	Used to specify whether or not to execute the Run Missed Condition when the instance is offline. Note: This setting is enabled by default.
Minimum Block Duration Required to Trigger SQL Server Agent Job: Block Condition	Used to specify the minimum time a SQL Agent Job must be part of a blocking chain before triggering the SQL Server Agent Job: Block Condition. Note: The default value is 15 seconds.
Enable AlwaysOn Health Collection	Used to enable AlwaysOn health collection. Note: This setting is disabled by default.
Query Collection Maximum Text Length	Change the maximum length of textdata captured for Top SQL and Top Command events. Note: The default value is 10,000 characters.
Normalization Engine	With the release of version 8.2, there have been improvements made to the Normalization Engine. Users upgrading from a prior build will need to select the Advanced option to see the enhancements. Note: The default value is Advanced, and the default value for Basic (Legacy) is 4000 characters.