SQL Server on Amazon RDS metrics and alerts
Published 14 February 2023
This documentation contains a list of metrics and alerts that are available when monitoring Amazon RDS SQL Server instances and the requirements for collecting them. If you can't find a specific metric or alert you would like to use when monitoring your RDS instances, send us feedback.
Metrics
Machine metrics
To get access to machine metrics in Amazon RDS you need to provide SQL Monitor with your AWS API credentials. To learn how to do that, please see ~Adding Amazon RDS SQL Server.
The following table summarizes the machine metrics that SQL Monitor can collect, for Amazon RDS servers, and which of those are collected only if Amazon RDS Enhanced Monitoring is enabled for your Amazon RDS instances:
| Metric name | Amazon RDS Enhanced Monitoring required? |
|---|---|
| Machine: Processor time | - |
| Machine: Memory used | Yes |
| Network utilization | - |
| Disk used | Yes |
| Disk capacity | Yes |
| Disk read and write bytes/sec | - |
| Disk transfers/sec | - |
SQL Server instance metrics
- User connections
- SQL Server: total memory
- SQL Server: target memory
- SQL Server: free memory
- SQL Server: plan cache memory
- SQL Server: connection memory
- SQL Server: lock memory
- SQL Server: optimizer memory
- SQL Server: buffer cache memory
- SQL Server: granted workspace memory
- SQL Server: log pool memory
- SQL Server: reserved server memory
- SQL Server: maximum workspace memory
- SQL Server: stolen server memory
- Memory grants pending
- Batch requests/sec
- Compilations/sec
- Compilations/batch
- Recompilations/sec
- Buffer cache hit ratio
- Buffer page life expectancy
- Full scans/sec
- Page splits/sec
- Page splits/batch request
- Latch wait time
- Lock timeouts/sec
- Lock waits/sec
- Avg. lock wait time
SQL Server database metrics
- Transactions/sec
- Active transactions
- Total file size
- Total data file size
- Total data file used
- File size
- File used
- Total log file size
- Total log space used
- Log space used %
- Log bytes flushed/sec
- Log flushes/sec
- Log flush waits/sec
Alerts
Alerts are based on metrics, so if the metric, or metrics, used by an alert require AWS API credentials or RDS Enhanced Monitoring to be collected, the alert will consequently have the same requirements.
The following table describes the requirements for the supported alerts:
| Alert name | Level raised | AWS API required? | Amazon RDS Enhanced Monitoring required? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backup overdue | SQL Server | - | - |
| Blocking process | SQL Server | - | - |
| Configuration change | SQL Server | - | - |
| Custom metric | SQL Server | - | - |
| Custom metric collection error | SQL Server | - | - |
| Database file usage | SQL Server | - | - |
| Database unavailable | SQL Server | - | - |
| Differential backup overdue | SQL Server | - | - |
| Disk space | Machine | yes | yes |
| Fragmented indexes | SQL Server | - | - |
| Internal SQL Monitor error | SQL Server | - | - |
| Job cancelled | SQL Server | - | - |
| Job duration unusual | SQL Server | - | - |
| Job failing | SQL Server | - | - |
| Log backup overdue | SQL Server | - | - |
| Long-running query | SQL Server | - | - |
| Monitoring error (SQL Server data collection) | SQL Server | - | - |
| Monitoring stopped (SQL Server credentials) | SQL Server | - | - |
| Page verification | SQL Server | - | - |
Physical memory | Machine | yes | yes |
| Processor under-utilization | Machine | yes | - |
| Processor utilization | Machine | yes | - |
| Server waits | SQL Server | - | - |
| SQL Deadlock (XE) | SQL Server | - | - |
| SQL Server Agent Service status | SQL Server | - | - |
| SQL Server error log entry | SQL Server | - | - |
| SQL Server log entry | SQL Server | - | - |
| SQL Server instance unreachable | SQL Server | - | - |
| Configuration change | SQL Server | - | - |
| Version store usage | SQL Server | - | - |
