Features and Enhancements in Management Pack for Azure SQL Database

This section covers new functionality and improvements in Management Pack for Azure SQL Database.

December 2022 - 7.0.42.0 RTM

What's New

• Updated the SPN creation process related to the latest changes in Azure API
• Added a new regular expression filtering mask type in the 'Server Filter List' monitoring wizard, now the server names can be filtered using regular expression for include and exclude from the monitoring
• Added a new regular expression filtering mask type in the 'Database Filter List' monitoring wizard, now the database names can be filtered using regular expression for include and exclude from the monitoring
• Added a new "Allocated Storage Percentage" monitor, which tracks the allocated space in Elastic Pool
• Added a new "Elastic Pool Data Space Allocated Percentage" performance rule, which collects the metric 'Data space allocated percentage' of Microsoft Azure SQL Elastic Database Pool in percentage terms
• Added a new "Elastic Pool Data Max Size" performance rule, which collects the metric 'Data max size' of Microsoft Azure SQL Elastic Database Pool in megabytes
• Added a new "Elastic Pool Data Space Used" performance rule, which collects the metric 'Data space used' of Microsoft Azure SQL Elastic Database Pool in megabytes
• Updated display strings

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with creating SPN with unnecessary API permissions for the Azure AD application
• Fixed an issue with incorrect space calculation for databases in the Hyperscale pricing tier - "Database Free Space" monitor, "Free Space (MB)", "Free Space Percentage", "Used Space Percentage", and "Total Space Quota (MB)" performance rules
• Fixed an issue with incorrect space calculation in the "Allocated Space Percent" performance rule in case of T-SQL monitoring
• Fixed an issue with failing custom monitoring wizard in the case of the wrong 'Target type' being selected

October 2020 - 7.0.26.0 RTM

What's New

• Added filtering list for SQL Servers and Databases to "Add Monitoring Wizard" template
• Removed deprecated workflows

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with "Elastic Pool" performance data on vCore-based pricing tiers

September 2020 - 7.0.25.0 CTP

What's New

• Added support of vCore-based pricing tier
• Updated the token renewal algorithm to get rid of 401 responses
• Updated Core Library MP and the “Summary” Dashboard
• Updated display strings

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with an unnecessary slash symbol in some requests to Azure REST API
• Fixed monitoring issues for databases that are replicated by failover groups and elastic pools

September 2019 - 7.0.5.0 private drop

What's New

• Fixed issue: datediff used for Long Running Transactions monitoring results in overflow in some environments

April 2018 - 7.0.4.0 RTM

What's New

• Provided a few minor UI improvements to the "Add Monitoring Wizard"

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue: The management pack may stop working due to a conflict of the Azure REST API libraries with the ones coming from the Microsoft Azure Management Pack

May 2017 - 6.7.28.0 RTM

What's New

• Due to performance problems, several monitors and performance rules were enabled for getting information via T-SQL queries only (the affected metrics are as follows: Failed Connections, Blocked Connections, Successful Connections, Deadlocks Count)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed "DB Transactions Locks Count" rule and "Transaction Locks Count" monitor
• Fixed "Azure SQL Database Event Log Collection Target Management Service" discovery
• Fixed "Server Exclude list" filter issue: 'server name couldn't contain whitespaces'
• Fixed the display strings, implemented appropriate Azure portal naming style

March 2017 - 6.7.25.0 CTP2

What's New

• Implemented performance improvements
• Improved error handling in "Add Monitoring Wizard"

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue: "Collect Elastic Database Pool Number of Databases" rule doesn't collect performance data if REST monitoring is used
• Fixed issue: "Operations Manager Expression Filter Module" error messages appear in the Operations Manager event log

December 2016 - 6.7.11.0 CTP1

What's New

• Azure Resource Manager is now supported: the previous versions of the Management Pack used T-SQL queries to SQL Server system views to get information on the health and performance of the databases; now, the Management Pack can also get this information from Azure REST API (this is a preferred option)
• Multiple subscriptions and multiple servers are now supported
• Added support for Azure AD authentication
• Added regular expression filtering capability for Azure SQL Database instances and Elastic Pools
• Improved monitoring efficiency: monitoring target is now defined by monitoring pool; 'Watcher Node' class is considered to be deprecated
• Improved System Center Operations Manager "Add Monitoring Wizard" to reflect the new features of the Management Pack
• Added health monitoring for Database Geo-Replication
• Added health monitoring for Elastic Pools
• Added monitoring for “Average DTU utilization percentage” metric
• Introduced performance improvements to the Management Pack
• Optimized performance rules notation: all Object Names are standardized; Instance Names aren't used anymore
• Updated the visualization library

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue: some rules work only if more than 1% of Azure SQL Database space is used

June 2016 - 1.6.1.0

What's New

• Added Dashboards
• Added many new monitors and rules, including the following:
  • CPU Usage (%)
  • Workers Usage (%)
  • Log write (%)
  • Data I/O (%)
  • Sessions (%)
  • Count Failed Connection
  • Count Successful Connection
  • Count Connection Blocked by Firewall
  • Count of Deadlock
  • Count Throttling long transaction
  • Count Connection Failed
  • XTP Storage (In-memory OLTP Storage in percentage terms)
• Deprecated "Collect Azure SQL Database Internal/External Network Egress/Ingress" performance rules
• Deprecated "SQL Azure Federation" and "Federation member" workflows
• Updated the management pack workflow names