Ever had a manager standing over your shoulder, wanting to know why an instance is running slow or if it can handle additional workload? What information would you use to answer these questions? If only you knew what performance metrics to collect and had them for your existing instances to answer these questions.

In this session, we will discuss sp_whoisactive and Query Store. Then we will be combining three open source tools – Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana – into an inexpensive system that collects performance metrics you can use to troubleshoot issues and answer important questions about your SQL Server instances, including your Linux SQL Server instances. We will learn what metrics to collect, how to use the tools to collect performance metrics and then we’ll put it all together in an interactive dashboard for easy visualization.

Attendees will see how easy it is to get good performance data and visualize in an interactive way and combine with other tools to troubleshoot issues. For an example, we will combine this solution with Query Store and/or sp_whoisactive to find a problem that occurred on a system and caused me to get my nap interrupted on a Saturday.

Tracy is a Database Administrator for Broadvine. She has spent over 20 years in IT and has been using SQL Server since 1999 and is currently certified as a MCSE Data Platform. She has worked on SQL Server since 6.5. She has spoken at local user groups and numerous SQLSaturdays. She is currently a co-leader of a Special Interest Group for Advanced DBA topics. She also is currently leading bring Linux content into the various virtual PASS groups.

Tracy also tinkered with databases in middle school to keep her sports card collection organized. She blogs at databasesuperhero.com. Her passion outside of SQL Server is volunteering with foster children as their advocate in court through volunteerforgal.org.