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Managing SQL Server Jobs

Info

This great monitoring feature helps you Monitor and Manage Jobs in SQL Server instances.

Monitoring
Management
Auto Discovery
SQL Server (2008 - 2022)

The Nodinite Database Monitoring Agent automatically discovers all your Jobs in configured SQL Server instances. When this feature is enabled, each Job yields one Resource that the System Administrator can include in one or more Monitor Views. A user gets alerts using at least one of the built-in Alarm Plugins.

The Display name of the Resource is the same as the name of the Job in SQL Server. The Jobs group by the Category name 'SQL Jobs':
SQL Jobs Category
Here's an example of a Monitor View filtered by the 'SQL Jobs' Category.

graph LR subgraph "Configuration" c["fal:fa-code 1 SQL Job"] --> r[fal:fa-lightbulb 1 Resource] end

What are the key features of 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 a SQL Agent, hence, the SQL Jobs feature is not available.


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 System Administrator can override the Monitoring state using the Expected State feature on the Resource within Nodinite.


How do I configure the thresholds for SQL Jobs?

There are two different ways to configure thresholds for SQL Jobs:

Global Configuration

SQL Server Jobs are included in the Monitoring when the checkbox Enable monitoring of SQL Jobs is checked from within the Remote Configuration dialogue for the Database Monitoring Agent.

From the Jobs tab the global settings are configured.
SQL Server Jobs tab
Here's an example of the Jobs tab with global monitoring thresholds

The System Administrator can manage the following properties:

  • Enable SQL Jobs Monitoring - When checked, the SQL Jobs Monitoring is enabled, otherwise it is not
  • 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

Info

Timespan format is (days.hours.minutes.seconds)


Actions

The Database Monitoring Agent category SQL Jobs supports the following Remote Actions:

Remote Actions
List of available Remote Actions for the SQL Jobs Category.

Enable Job

The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Enable. Click Yes to Enable the Job.
Enable job
Here's an example of confirmation dialogue to enable a disabled SQL Job

Disable Job

The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Disable Click Yes to Disable the Job.
Disable job
Here's an 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.
Edit thresholds
Here's an 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:

  • Expected State - Checked if the job is expected to be enabled

View history

View the last number of runs for the selected job. The number of available logs is managed within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
View History

The list is paginated conserving bandwidth and improving performance.

You can update the list by clicking the Reload button in the upper right corner.

Start Job

The following dialogue is on display after clicking the action button menu item Start. Click Yes, to Start the Job.
Start Job
Here's an 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.
Start at step
Here's an 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:
Confirm start at step operation
Here's an example of confirmation dialogue to start job at selected step

Review the View history to manually get the outcome.

Stop Job

Click the Stop button to stop the Job. You will then be prompted with the following dialogue:
Stop
Here's an example of confirmation dialogue to stop a running SQL Job

Review the View history to manually get the outcome.

Save

You must click 'Save' or 'Save and close' for changes to persist. The new settings/thresholds are evaluated on the next synchronization.
Save and Close buttons
Here's an example of the Save options.

Note

Depending on the synchronization interval set for the agent, there might be a delay before the Web Client reflects upon the change. You can force the agent to synchronize the Configuration for all Nodinite Monitoring Agents.

Save and close, save, and close the dialogue.

Cancel, closes the dialogue without saving any changes.


Next Step

SQL Categories

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Database Monitoring Agent
Monitoring Agents
Monitor Views
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