topic SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring in Extensions

SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

Troy — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 17:53:13 GMT

Hello - We are trying to monitor SQL Server instances being offline via the Microsoft SQL Server Extension.

As I can tell theres no easy metric for instance state. and the uptime does not seem to be 100% reliable. using:

timeseries state = sum(`sql-server.uptime`, default: 0), by: {instance, device.name} | filter contains(instance, "HOST")

I see the uptime at 0 during a timeframe where our SQL Admin says there was no outage to the instance.

Could someone please point me in the right direction for SQL Instance monitoring? We cannot monitor services either since there are clustered servers where the instance is offline on one server but not the other.

Re: SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

AntonPineiro — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 21:45:19 GMT

Hi,

If you have OneAgent installed also, you can monitor SQL OS Service is up and running.

Best regards

Re: SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

Troy — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:27:06 GMT

They have one agent but as mentioned this is a problem since some are clustered - meaning one server has it on while the other has it off. causing it to alert. so we would like to monitor the instance state itself.

Re: SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

rastislav_danis — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:08:12 GMT

If you have "Always on" type of MSSQL cluster, then all replicas should be available (even not primary one), maybe access to non-primary replicas need to be set up. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/configure-read-only-access-on-an-availability-replica-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver17.

How to monitor Always on is described in doc https://www.dynatrace.com/hub/detail/microsoft-sql-server-2/?query=mssql&filter=all (check part named "Are there any special considerations when monitoring Always On clusters?")

Re: SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

Troy — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:22:54 GMT

Thank you - I will take a look into this.

Re: SQL Server Instance Offline Monitoring

Gramblicka-DXC — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:51:02 GMT

Best way is to just keep sending any query that is supposed to give an answer. For me i used number of connected users. The entire point is that you aim this metric at the instance, if its clustered or not it doesnt matter as the extension cares whether the ip is correct (travels with clustered instance), the port and the instance name (if you use it for specific instances). Logic is as follows:

1. metric keeps queries the instance for number of connected users.

2. The answer itself doesnt matter, we only care that we get an answer. Even if you monitor the service the instance might be up from system point of view but be stuck internally.

3. Here comes the other part. In metric use a selector and tick "alert on missing data". If you stop getting answers it means that instance is unavailable and thats what matters.

4. yes, if you have a network outage you will get false alerts but that is inherent to any remote run monitoring type of setup.