How to Monitor a SQL Database Server
Typically, database servers are behind firewalls, which make them a tricky server to monitor using our service. There are two options you have for monitoring your SQL database servers using AlertBot.
The first option, although not recommended, would be to open up a port on your firewall to the database server and user our Server Standard service to test the responsiveness of the database port. We do not recommend this option because of the security risks in opening up this port on your firewall. We also don't recommend this option because it does not test the database server's ability to process a SQL statement.
We highly recommend the following alternative option because it is highly secure and can be customized to run SQL tests. This option is to setup an intermediate test page on one of your web servers. This test page would be scripted with a server-side scripting language (like ASP, PHP, etc.) to run a SQL query against the database and return either a simple HTML "passed" message or the script's error message when it fails. Using this page, you can script multiple advanced SQL queries to test different aspects of your database or if you have multiple databases you can run a SQL query against each your databases.
Once this intermediate test page is setup, you can then use AlertBot's Website Standard service to monitor that web-based test page. This service will both look for a "passed" message in the HTML as well as verify that the entire page is processed without errors. If this test page throws a scripting error, our Website Standard service will catch it and alert you. In addition, when a failure is detected, the Website Standard service will take a screenshot of the error page for you so you can see the details of the error at a later time in the AlertBot Log reports. This is very useful for troubleshooting intermittent errors.
The first option, although not recommended, would be to open up a port on your firewall to the database server and user our Server Standard service to test the responsiveness of the database port. We do not recommend this option because of the security risks in opening up this port on your firewall. We also don't recommend this option because it does not test the database server's ability to process a SQL statement.
We highly recommend the following alternative option because it is highly secure and can be customized to run SQL tests. This option is to setup an intermediate test page on one of your web servers. This test page would be scripted with a server-side scripting language (like ASP, PHP, etc.) to run a SQL query against the database and return either a simple HTML "passed" message or the script's error message when it fails. Using this page, you can script multiple advanced SQL queries to test different aspects of your database or if you have multiple databases you can run a SQL query against each your databases.
Once this intermediate test page is setup, you can then use AlertBot's Website Standard service to monitor that web-based test page. This service will both look for a "passed" message in the HTML as well as verify that the entire page is processed without errors. If this test page throws a scripting error, our Website Standard service will catch it and alert you. In addition, when a failure is detected, the Website Standard service will take a screenshot of the error page for you so you can see the details of the error at a later time in the AlertBot Log reports. This is very useful for troubleshooting intermittent errors.
Updated on: 10/24/2022
Thank you!