This section is about how to use the Alerts and Metrics section of the Configuration page in the SQL Monitor UI, or the PowerShell API, to configure your monitoring, alerting and alert notification strategies. You will need to do this so that the tool fits in with your business requirements, the level of activity on your SQL Servers, and the style of your monitoring activities and preferences.

This section explains:

• How SQL Monitor alerts work – explaining the various alert types, their settings, the alert life cycle and so on.
• Using the Alert settings page to:
  • Configure the alert settings for each individual alert type, to enable or disable them, adjust their thresholds, and determine notifications.
  • Customize the alerting strategy for the the needs of each Server Group, or even individual monitored objects (a machine, disk, instance, database or job, depending on the alert type).
• Using the Alert suppression page to:
  • Create scheduled windows to suppress alerts, or just their notifications, during periods when they would be meaningless or a distraction, such as during maintenance window.
• Using the SQL Monitor PowerShell API to:
  • "Bulk apply" a finely-tuned alerting strategy to a group of servers which are likely to require the same alerts and thresholds, the same notifications and email destination addresses.

Next step

• How SQL Monitor alerts work