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Database watcher data collection and datasets (preview)

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Applies to: Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

Database watcher collects monitoring data from SQL system views and ingests it into the data store in the form of datasets. Each dataset is formed using the data from one or more SQL system views. For each dataset, there is a separate table in the data store.

Data collection

Database watcher collects monitoring data at periodic intervals using T-SQL queries. Data collected in each execution of a query is called a sample. Sample collection frequency varies by dataset. For example, frequently changing data such as SQL performance counters might be collected every 10 seconds, while mostly static data such as database configuration might be collected every five minutes. For more information, see Datasets.

Database watcher takes advantage of streaming ingestion in Azure Data Explorer and Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric to provide near real time monitoring. Typically, collected SQL monitoring data becomes available for reporting and analysis in less than 10 seconds. You can monitor data ingestion latency on the database watcher dashboards, using the Ingestion statistics link.

Interaction between database watcher and application workloads

Enabling database watcher is not likely to have an observable impact on the application workload performance. More frequent monitoring queries typically execute in the sub-second range, whereas queries that might require more time, for example to return large datasets, run at infrequent intervals.

To further reduce the risk of impact to application workloads, all database watcher queries in Azure SQL Database are resource-governed as an internal workload. When resource contention is present, resource consumption by the monitoring queries is limited to a small fraction of total resources available to the database. This prioritizes application workloads over monitoring queries.

To avoid concurrency conflicts such as blocking and deadlocks between data collection and database workloads running on your Azure SQL resources, the monitoring queries use short lock timeouts and low deadlock priority. If there is a concurrency conflict, priority is given to the application workload queries.

You might observe gaps in the collected data if the overall resource utilization is high, or if concurrency conflicts occur. In these cases, monitoring queries might be deprioritized in favor of application workloads.

Data collection in elastic pools

To monitor an elastic pool, you must designate one database in the pool as the anchor database. Database watcher connects to the anchor database. Because the watcher holds the VIEW SERVER PERFORMANCE STATE permission, system views in the anchor database provide monitoring data for the pool as a whole.

Tip

You can add an empty database to each elastic pool you want to monitor, and designate it as the anchor database. This way, you can move other databases in and out of the pool, or between pools, without interrupting elastic pool monitoring.

Data collected from the anchor database contains pool-level metrics, and certain database-level performance metrics for every database in the pool, such as resource utilization and request rate metrics for each database. For some scenarios, adding an elastic pool SQL target to monitor an elastic pool as a whole can make it unnecessary to monitor each individual database in the pool.

Certain monitoring data such as pool-level CPU, memory, storage utilization, and wait statistics is only collected at the elastic pool level because it cannot be attributed to an individual database in a pool. Conversely, certain other data such as query runtime statistics, database properties, table and index metadata is only available if you add individual databases as SQL targets.

If you add individual databases from an elastic pool as SQL targets, you should add the elastic pool as a SQL target as well. This way, you get a more complete view of the database and pool performance.

Monitor dense elastic pools

A dense elastic pool contains a large number of databases, but has a relatively small compute size. This configuration lets customers achieve substantial cost savings by keeping the compute resource allocation to a minimum on the assumption that only a small number of databases in the pool are active at the same time.

Compute resources available to database watcher queries in a dense elastic pool are further limited to avoid affecting application queries. Because of this, database watcher might not be able to collect monitoring data from every database in a dense elastic pool.

Tip

To monitor a dense elastic pool, enable monitoring at the pool level by adding the elastic pool as a SQL target.

It is not recommended to monitor more than a few individual databases in a dense elastic pool. You might see gaps in the collected data or larger than expected intervals between data samples due to insufficient compute resources available to database watcher queries.

Data residency

Customers can choose to store collected SQL monitoring data in one of three data store types:

  • A database on an Azure Data Explorer cluster. By default, a new Azure Data Explorer cluster is created for each new watcher and is located in the same Azure region as the watcher.

    Customers can choose the specific Azure region in an Azure geography as the location of their Azure Data Explorer cluster and the database. For more information about data replication capabilities in Azure Data Explorer, see Business continuity and disaster recovery overview.

  • A database on a free Azure Data Explorer cluster.

    Customers can choose the specific Azure geography, but not the specific Azure region as the location of their free Azure Data Explorer cluster and the database. Data replication to a different region or geography is not supported.

  • A database in Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric.

    Customers cannot choose the geographical location of the database.

To fully control data residency for collected SQL monitoring data, customers must choose a database on an Azure Data Explorer cluster as the data store.

Customers can align the geography and region of their Azure Data Explorer cluster to the geography and region of the Azure SQL resources being monitored. When the Azure SQL resources are located in multiple regions, customers might need to create multiple watchers and multiple Azure Data Explorer clusters to satisfy their data residency requirements.

Datasets

This section describes the datasets available for each SQL target type, including collection frequencies and table names in the data store.

Note

During preview, datasets might be added and removed. Dataset properties such as name, description, collection frequency, and available columns are subject to change.

Dataset name Table name Collection frequency (hh:mm:ss) Description
Active sessions sqldb_database_active_sessions 00:00:30 Each row represents a session that is running a request, is a blocker, or has an open transaction.
Backup history sqldb_database_sql_backup_history 00:05:00 Each row represents a successfully completed database backup.
Change processing sqldb_database_change_processing 00:01:00 Each row represents a snapshot of aggregate log scan statistics for a change processing feature such as Change Data Capture or Change Feed (Azure Synapse Link).
Change processing errors sqldb_database_change_processing_errors 00:01:00 Each row represents an error that occurred during change processing, when using a change processing feature such as Change Data Capture or Change Feed (Azure Synapse Link).
Connectivity sqldb_database_connectivity 00:00:30 Each row represents a connectivity probe (a login and a query) for a database.
Geo-replicas sqldb_database_geo_replicas 00:00:30 Each row represents a primary or a secondary geo-replica, including geo-replication metadata and statistics.
Index metadata sqldb_database_index_metadata 00:30:00 Each row represents an index partition and includes index definition, properties, and operational statistics.
Memory utilization sqldb_database_memory_utilization 00:00:10 Each row represents a memory clerk and includes memory consumption by the clerk on the database engine instance.
Missing indexes sqldb_database_missing_indexes 00:15:00 Each row represents an index that might improve query performance if created.
Out-of-memory events sqldb_database_oom_events 00:01:00 Each row represents an out-of-memory event in the database engine.
Performance counters (common) sqldb_database_performance_counters_common 00:00:10 Each row represents a performance counter of the database engine instance. This dataset includes commonly used counters.
Performance counters (detailed) sqldb_database_performance_counters_detailed 00:01:00 Each row represents a performance counter of the database engine instance. This dataset includes counters that might be needed for detailed monitoring and troubleshooting.
Properties sqldb_database_properties 00:05:00 Each row represents a database and includes database options, resource governance limits, and other database metadata.
Query runtime statistics sqldb_database_query_runtime_stats 00:15:00 Each row represents a Query Store runtime interval and includes query execution statistics.
Query wait statistics sqldb_database_query_wait_stats 00:15:00 Each row represents a Query Store runtime interval and includes wait category statistics.
Replicas sqldb_database_replicas 00:00:10 Each row represents a database replica, including replication metadata and statistics. Includes the primary replica and geo-replicas when collected on the primary, and secondary replicas when collected on a secondary.
Resource utilization sqldb_database_resource_utilization 00:00:15 Each row represents CPU, Data IO, Log IO, and other resource consumption statistics for a database in a time interval.
Session statistics sqldb_database_session_stats 00:01:00 Each row represents a summary of session statistics for a database, aggregated by non-additive session attributes such as login name, host name, application name, etc.
SOS schedulers sqldb_database_sos_schedulers 00:01:00 Each row represents a SOS scheduler and includes statistics for the scheduler, CPU node, and memory node.
Storage IO sqldb_database_storage_io 00:00:10 Each row represents a database file and includes cumulative IOPS, throughput, and latency statistics for the file.
Storage utilization sqldb_database_storage_utilization 00:01:00 Each row represents a database and includes its storage usage, including tempdb, Query Store, and Persistent Version Store.
Table metadata sqldb_database_table_metadata 00:30:00 Each row represents a table or an indexed view, and includes metadata such as row count, space usage, data compression, columns, and constraints.
Wait statistics sqldb_database_wait_stats 00:00:10 Each row represents a wait type and includes cumulative wait statistics of the database engine instance. For databases in an elastic pool, only database-scoped wait statistics are collected.

Note

For databases in an elastic pool, the SQL database datasets containing pool-level data are not collected. This includes the Memory utilization, Out-of-memory events, Performance counters (common), and Performance counters (detailed) datasets. The Wait statistics dataset is collected but contains only database-scoped waits. This avoids collection of the same data from every database in the pool.

Pool-level data is collected in the SQL elastic pool datasets. For a given elastic pool, the Performance counters (common) and Performance counters (detailed) datasets contain pool-level metrics and certain database-level metrics such as CPU, Data IO, Log write, Requests, Transactions, etc.

Common columns

For each SQL target type, datasets have common columns, as described in the following tables.

Column name Description
subscription_id The Azure subscription ID of the SQL database.
resource_group_name The resource group name of the SQL database.
resource_id The Azure resource ID of the SQL database.
sample_time_utc The time when the values in the row were observed, in UTC.
collection_time_utc The time when the row was collected by the watcher, in UTC. This column is present in datasets where collection time might be different from sample time.
replica_type One of: Primary, HA secondary, Geo-replication forwarder, Named secondary.
logical_server_name The name of the logical server in Azure SQL Database containing the monitored database or elastic pool.
database_name The name of the monitored database.
database_id Database ID of the monitored database, unique within the logical server.
logical_database_id A unique database identifier that remains unchanged over the lifetime of the user database. Renaming the database or changing its service objective does not change this value.
physical_database_id A unique database identifier for the current physical database corresponding to the user database. Changing database service objective causes this value to change.
replica_id A unique identifier for a Hyperscale compute replica.

A dataset has both sample_time_utc and collection_time_utc columns if it contains samples observed before the row was collected by database watcher. Otherwise, the observation time and collection time are the same, and the dataset contains only the sample_time_utc column.

For example, the sqldb_database_resource_utilization dataset is derived from the sys.dm_db_resource_stats dynamic management view (DMV). The DMV contains the end_time column, which is the observation time for each row reporting aggregate resource statistics for a 15-second interval. This time is reported in the sample_time_utc column. When database watcher queries this DMV, the result set might contain multiple rows, each with a different end_time. All of these rows have the same collection_time_utc value.

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