SQL Server, Databases Object

The SQLServer:Databases object in SQL Server provides counters to monitor bulk copy operations, backup and restore throughput, and transaction log activities. Monitor transactions and the transaction log to determine how much user activity is occurring in the database and how full the transaction log is becoming. The amount of user activity can determine the performance of the database and affect log size, locking, and replication. Monitoring low-level log activity to gauge user activity and resource usage can help you to identify performance bottlenecks.

Multiple instances of the Databases object, each representing a single database, can be monitored at the same time.

This table describes the SQL Server Databases counters.

SQL Server Databases counters

Description

Active Transactions

Number of active transactions for the database.

Backup/Restore Throughput/sec

Read/write throughput for backup and restore operations of a database per second. For example, you can measure how the performance of the database backup operation changes when more backup devices are used in parallel or when faster devices are used. Throughput of a database backup or restore operation allows you to determine the progress and performance of your backup and restore operations.

Bulk Copy Rows/sec

Number of rows bulk copied per second.

Bulk Copy Throughput/sec

Amount of data bulk copied (in kilobytes) per second.

Commit table entries

The size of the in-memory portion of the commit table for the database. For more information, see sys.dm_tran_commit_table (Transact-SQL).

Data File(s) Size (KB)

Cumulative size (in kilobytes) of all the data files in the database including any automatic growth. Monitoring this counter is useful, for example, for determining the correct size of tempdb.

DBCC Logical Scan Bytes/sec

Number of logical read scan bytes per second for database console commands (DBCC).

Log Cache Hit Ratio

Percentage of log cache reads satisfied from the log cache.

Log Cache Reads/sec

Reads performed per second through the log manager cache.

Log File(s) Size (KB)

Cumulative size (in kilobytes) of all the transaction log files in the database.

Log File(s) Used Size (KB)

The cumulative used size of all the log files in the database.

Log Flush Wait Time

Total wait time (in milliseconds) to flush the log. On an AlwaysOn secondary database, this value indicates the wait time for log records to be hardened to disk.

Log Flush Waits/sec

Number of commits per second waiting for the log flush.

Log Flush Write Time (ms)

Time in milliseconds for performing writes of log flushes that were completed in the last second.

Log Flushes/sec

Number of log flushes per second.

Log Growths

Total number of times the transaction log for the database has been expanded.

Log Shrinks

Total number of times the transaction log for the database has been shrunk.

Log Pool Cache Misses/sec

Number of requests for which the log block was not available in the log pool. The log pool is an in-memory cache of the transaction log. This cache is used to optimize reading the log for recovery, transaction replication, rollback, and AlwaysOn Availability Groups.

Log Pool Disk Reads/sec

Number of disk reads that the log pool issued to fetch log blocks.

Log Pool Requests/sec

The number of log-block requests processed by the log pool.

Log Truncations

The number of times the transaction log has been shrunk.

Percent Log Used

Percentage of space in the log that is in use.

Repl. Pending Xacts

Number of transactions in the transaction log of the publication database marked for replication, but not yet delivered to the distribution database.

Repl. Trans. Rate

Number of transactions per second read out of the transaction log of the publication database and delivered to the distribution database.

Shrink Data Movement Bytes/sec

Amount of data being moved per second by autoshrink operations, or DBCC SHRINKDATABASE or DBCC SHRINKFILE statements.

Tracked transactions/sec

Number of committed transactions recorded in the commit table for the database.

Transactions/sec

Number of transactions started for the database per second.

Write Transactions/sec

Number of transactions that wrote to the database and committed, in the last second.

See Also

Reference

SQL Server, Database Replica

Concepts

Monitor Resource Usage (System Monitor)