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Monitor Azure SQL Database

  • Article

Applies to: Azure SQL Database

This article describes:

  • The types of monitoring data you can collect for this service.
  • Ways to analyze that data.

Note

If you're already familiar with this service and/or Azure Monitor and just want to know how to analyze monitoring data, see the Analyze section near the end of this article.

When you have critical applications and business processes that rely on Azure resources, you need to monitor and get alerts for your system. The Azure Monitor service collects and aggregates metrics and logs from every component of your system. Azure Monitor provides you with a view of availability, performance, and resilience, and notifies you of issues. You can use the Azure portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI, REST API, or client libraries to set up and view monitoring data.

The SQL Server database engine has its own monitoring and diagnostic capabilities that Azure SQL Database uses, such as query store and dynamic management views (DMVs). For more information, see Monitor performance by using the Query Store and Monitor Azure SQL Database performance using dynamic management views.

For a detailed discussion of all monitoring and performance aspects of Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance, see Monitor and performance tuning in Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance.

Important

For a set of recommended alert rules, see Monitor Azure SQL Database with Azure Monitor metrics and alerts.

Insights

Some services in Azure have a built-in monitoring dashboard in the Azure portal that provides a starting point for monitoring your service. These dashboards are called insights, and you can find them in the Insights Hub of Azure Monitor in the Azure portal.

Azure Monitor SQL Insights (preview)

You can configure Azure Monitor SQL Insights for SQL-specific metrics for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure VMs. For more information about Azure Monitor SQL Insights for all products in the Azure SQL family, see Monitor your SQL deployments with SQL Insights (preview).

For more information on how to use SQL Insights, see the following articles:

Intelligent Insights

Intelligent Insights for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance is different from Azure Monitor SQL Insights. Intelligent Insights uses artificial intelligence to continuously monitor database usage and detect disruptive events that cause poor performance. Intelligent Insights generates a resource log called SQLInsights that provides an intelligent assessment, root cause analysis, and performance improvement recommendations.

For more information, see Intelligent Insights using AI to monitor and troubleshoot database performance (preview) and Use the Intelligent Insights performance diagnostics log.

Query Performance Insight

Query Performance Insight uses the SQL Server Query Store to provide intelligent query analysis and insight on query plan choice and performance for single and pooled databases. For more information, see Query Performance Insight for Azure SQL Database.

Resource types

Azure uses the concept of resource types and IDs to identify everything in a subscription. Azure Monitor similarly organizes core monitoring data into metrics and logs based on resource types, also called namespaces. Different metrics and logs are available for different resource types. Your service might be associated with more than one resource type.

Resource types are also part of the resource IDs for every resource running in Azure. For example, one resource type for a virtual machine is Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines. For a list of services and their associated resource types, see Resource providers.

For more information about the resource types for SQL Database, see SQL Database monitoring data reference.

Data storage

For Azure Monitor:

  • Metrics data is stored in the Azure Monitor metrics database.
  • Log data is stored in the Azure Monitor logs store. Log Analytics is a tool in the Azure portal that can query this store.
  • The Azure activity log is a separate store with its own interface in the Azure portal.

You can optionally route metric and activity log data to the Azure Monitor logs store. You can then use Log Analytics to query the data and correlate it with other log data.

Many services can use diagnostic settings to send metric and log data to other storage locations outside Azure Monitor. Examples include Azure Storage, hosted partner systems, and non-Azure partner systems, by using Event Hubs.

For detailed information on how Azure Monitor stores data, see Azure Monitor data platform.

Azure Monitor platform metrics

Azure Monitor provides platform metrics for most services. These metrics are:

  • Individually defined for each namespace.
  • Stored in the Azure Monitor time-series metrics database.
  • Lightweight and capable of supporting near real-time alerting.
  • Used to track the performance of a resource over time.

Collection: Azure Monitor collects platform metrics automatically. No configuration is required.

Routing: You can also usually route platform metrics to Azure Monitor Logs / Log Analytics so you can query them with other log data. For more information, see the Metrics diagnostic setting. For how to configure diagnostic settings for a service, see Create diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor.

For a list of all metrics it's possible to gather for all resources in Azure Monitor, see Supported metrics in Azure Monitor.

Azure SQL Database metrics

You can use metrics to monitor database and elastic pool resource consumption and health. For example, you can:

  • Right-size the database or elastic pool to your application workload
  • Detect a gradual increase in resource consumption, and proactively scale up the database or elastic pool
  • Detect and troubleshoot a performance problem

For a list and descriptions of commonly used metrics in Azure SQL Database, see Azure SQL Database metrics.

For tables of all available metrics for SQL Database, see SQL Database monitoring data reference.

Azure Monitor resource logs

Resource logs provide insight into operations that were done by an Azure resource. Logs are generated automatically, but you must route them to Azure Monitor logs to save or query them. Logs are organized in categories. A given namespace might have multiple resource log categories.

Collection: Resource logs aren't collected and stored until you create a diagnostic setting and route the logs to one or more locations. When you create a diagnostic setting, you specify which categories of logs to collect. There are multiple ways to create and maintain diagnostic settings, including the Azure portal, programmatically, and though Azure Policy.

Routing: The suggested default is to route resource logs to Azure Monitor Logs so you can query them with other log data. Other locations such as Azure Storage, Azure Event Hubs, and certain Microsoft monitoring partners are also available. For more information, see Azure resource logs and Resource log destinations.

For detailed information about collecting, storing, and routing resource logs, see Diagnostic settings in Azure Monitor.

For a list of all available resource log categories in Azure Monitor, see Supported resource logs in Azure Monitor.

All resource logs in Azure Monitor have the same header fields, followed by service-specific fields. The common schema is outlined in Azure Monitor resource log schema.

Azure SQL Database logs

Auditing for Azure SQL Database tracks database events and writes them to an audit log in your Azure storage account, Log Analytics workspace, or Event Hubs. For more information, see Auditing for Azure SQL Database.

For more information on the resource logs and diagnostics available for Azure SQL Database, see Configure streaming export of diagnostic telemetry.

For the available resource log categories, their associated Log Analytics tables, and the logs schemas for SQL Database, see SQL Database monitoring data reference.

Azure activity log

The activity log contains subscription-level events that track operations for each Azure resource as seen from outside that resource; for example, creating a new resource or starting a virtual machine.

Collection: Activity log events are automatically generated and collected in a separate store for viewing in the Azure portal.

Routing: You can send activity log data to Azure Monitor Logs so you can analyze it alongside other log data. Other locations such as Azure Storage, Azure Event Hubs, and certain Microsoft monitoring partners are also available. For more information on how to route the activity log, see Overview of the Azure activity log.

Analyze monitoring data

There are many tools for analyzing monitoring data.

Azure Monitor tools

Azure Monitor supports the following basic tools:

Tools that allow more complex visualization include:

  • Dashboards that let you combine different kinds of data into a single pane in the Azure portal.
  • Workbooks, customizable reports that you can create in the Azure portal. Workbooks can include text, metrics, and log queries.
  • Grafana, an open platform tool that excels in operational dashboards. You can use Grafana to create dashboards that include data from multiple sources other than Azure Monitor.
  • Power BI, a business analytics service that provides interactive visualizations across various data sources. You can configure Power BI to automatically import log data from Azure Monitor to take advantage of these visualizations.

Azure Monitor export tools

You can get data out of Azure Monitor into other tools by using the following methods:

To get started with the REST API for Azure Monitor, see Azure monitoring REST API walkthrough.

Kusto queries

You can analyze monitoring data in the Azure Monitor Logs / Log Analytics store by using the Kusto query language (KQL).

Important

When you select Logs from the service's menu in the portal, Log Analytics opens with the query scope set to the current service. This scope means that log queries will only include data from that type of resource. If you want to run a query that includes data from other Azure services, select Logs from the Azure Monitor menu. See Log query scope and time range in Azure Monitor Log Analytics for details.

For a list of common queries for any service, see the Log Analytics queries interface.

Note

Occasionally, it might take up to 15 minutes between when an event is emitted and when it appears in a Log Analytics workspace.

Use the following queries to monitor your database. You might see different options available depending on your purchasing model.

Example A: Log_write_percent from the past hour

AzureMetrics
| where ResourceProvider == "MICROSOFT.SQL"
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60min)
| where MetricName in ('log_write_percent')
| parse _ResourceId with * "/microsoft.sql/servers/" Resource
| summarize Log_Maximum_last60mins = max(Maximum), Log_Minimum_last60mins = min(Minimum), Log_Average_last60mins = avg(Average) by Resource, MetricName

Example B: SQL Server wait types from the past 15 minutes

AzureDiagnostics
| where ResourceProvider == "MICROSOFT.SQL"
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(15min)
| parse _ResourceId with * "/microsoft.sql/servers/" LogicalServerName "/databases/" DatabaseName
| summarize Total_count_15mins = sum(delta_waiting_tasks_count_d) by LogicalServerName, DatabaseName, wait_type_s

Example C: SQL Server deadlocks from the past 60 minutes

AzureMetrics
| where ResourceProvider == "MICROSOFT.SQL"
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60min)
| where MetricName in ('deadlock')
| parse _ResourceId with * "/microsoft.sql/servers/" Resource
| summarize Deadlock_max_60Mins = max(Maximum) by Resource, MetricName

Example D: Avg CPU usage from the past hour

AzureMetrics
| where ResourceProvider == "MICROSOFT.SQL"
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60min)
| where MetricName in ('cpu_percent')
| parse _ResourceId with * "/microsoft.sql/servers/" Resource
| summarize CPU_Maximum_last60mins = max(Maximum), CPU_Minimum_last60mins = min(Minimum), CPU_Average_last60mins = avg(Average) by Resource, MetricName

Alerts

Azure Monitor alerts proactively notify you when specific conditions are found in your monitoring data. Alerts allow you to identify and address issues in your system before your customers notice them. For more information, see Azure Monitor alerts.

There are many sources of common alerts for Azure resources. For examples of common alerts for Azure resources, see Sample log alert queries. The Azure Monitor Baseline Alerts (AMBA) site provides a semi-automated method of implementing important platform metric alerts, dashboards, and guidelines. The site applies to a continually expanding subset of Azure services, including all services that are part of the Azure Landing Zone (ALZ).

The common alert schema standardizes the consumption of Azure Monitor alert notifications. For more information, see Common alert schema.

Types of alerts

You can alert on any metric or log data source in the Azure Monitor data platform. There are many different types of alerts depending on the services you're monitoring and the monitoring data you're collecting. Different types of alerts have various benefits and drawbacks. For more information, see Choose the right monitoring alert type.

The following list describes the types of Azure Monitor alerts you can create:

  • Metric alerts evaluate resource metrics at regular intervals. Metrics can be platform metrics, custom metrics, logs from Azure Monitor converted to metrics, or Application Insights metrics. Metric alerts can also apply multiple conditions and dynamic thresholds.
  • Log alerts allow users to use a Log Analytics query to evaluate resource logs at a predefined frequency.
  • Activity log alerts trigger when a new activity log event occurs that matches defined conditions. Resource Health alerts and Service Health alerts are activity log alerts that report on your service and resource health.

Some Azure services also support smart detection alerts, Prometheus alerts, or recommended alert rules.

For some services, you can monitor at scale by applying the same metric alert rule to multiple resources of the same type that exist in the same Azure region. Individual notifications are sent for each monitored resource. For supported Azure services and clouds, see Monitor multiple resources with one alert rule.

SQL Database alert rules

The following table lists common and recommended alert rules for SQL Database. You might see different options available depending on your purchasing model.

Signal name Operator Aggregation type Threshold value Description
DTU Percentage Greater than Average 80 Whenever the average DTU percentage is greater than 80%
Log IO percentage Greater than Average 80 Whenever the average log io percentage is greater than 80%
Deadlocks* Greater than Count 1 Whenever the count of deadlocks is greater than 1.
CPU percentage Greater than Average 80 Whenever the average cpu percentage is greater than 80%

* Alerting on deadlocks might be unnecessary and noisy in some applications where deadlocks are expected and properly handled.

For more recommended alert rules and typical alert rule configurations for SQL Database, see Monitor Azure SQL Database with Azure Monitor metrics and alerts.

Advisor recommendations

For some services, if critical conditions or imminent changes occur during resource operations, an alert displays on the service Overview page in the portal. You can find more information and recommended fixes for the alert in Advisor recommendations under Monitoring in the left menu. During normal operations, no advisor recommendations display.

For more information on Azure Advisor, see Azure Advisor overview.

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