SQL Monitor is designed both to help users spot problems as early as possible and to provide enough evidence to allow those users, even those without deep knowledge of SQL Server, to determine the cause of a problem and figure out the remedy. To do this, it collects and analyses a wide range of metric and alert data from the machines, instances and databases that it monitors. It uses this data to provide a detailed graphical view of resource usage, server and user activity and alerts over time. 

This section provides everything you need to know about how SQL Monitor's metrics and alerts work, and how to configure them, covering:

• How SQL Monitor collects metric and alert data – the monitored object hierarchy, the various sources of metrics and alerts within each monitored object.
• How to configure the built-in alerts – configure alerts settings (via the UI or PowerShell API), suppress alerts for certain periods, decide who should be notified of alerts, and via which channels.
• Metrics and alerts reference – a complete list, with explanations, of SQL Monitor's performance metrics and alerts.
• How to add custom metrics and alerts – extend your monitoring strategy to match your server, application and business requirements.
• How to send alert notifications via various channels – such as email, or Slack, SNMP, or via webhooks. Most major ticketing systems, such as ServiceNow, group messaging apps, such as Microsoft Teams, or more general infrastructure management tools, such as Splunk, will allow you to set up a webhook to receive alert messages from SQL Monitor.

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How SQL Monitor collects metric and alert data