Monitoring MSSQL cluster events?

[jsharris]

We are looking for a way to monitor SQL cluster manager events in the logs of our MSSQL servers but can't seem to find anything that fits the bill. The regular event log check in Nagios looks like it will alert to the presence of events with particular parameters in the server logs but as we do not clear the logs it seems that once an event occurs Nagios will have that alert present at all times following? Is this the case?

Has anyone here had any luck with finding a solution for something like this?

[tmcdonald]

Has anyone here had any luck with finding a solution for something like this?

We have, and we called it Nagios Logserver.

I know that's maybe not the answer you were hoping for, but it's honestly the way to go. Not trying to push a sale on you, but the whole reason we wrote Logserver is for exactly this sort of thing. An active check run every minute can only be so accurate, and you need to modify most existing plugins to deal with time ranges or maintain state between checks. Some of them are built in like the NSClient checks which I believe can say "Check within the last X minutes" but if you are going to do much more with logs, I really can't recommend Logserver enough.

[jsharris]

I looked at Nagios Logserver early on but unfortunately the budget we have at this time is literally zero dollars. Maybe if the number of things we monitor grows I can get some folks to rethink the investment but at this point it is a non starter.

I have been working a bit with NSCA and the NagEventLog agent but it looks like development stopped on it some time ago. The creator has a beta for 2008 x64 but unless I am misreading the dates, the last release of any kind was in early 2009. I have so far been unable to get the agent to install without error and I am loathe to install something like that on anything as vital as our production SQL cluster.

[jdalrymple]

the budget we have at this time is literally zero dollars

Incidentally we have a version of Nagios Log Server at exactly that price point.

The very distant, next best alternative is nsclient realtime event log monitoring.

[jsharris]

Incidentally we have a version of Nagios Log Server at exactly that price point.

Touche, sir. Looks like I'll be downloading Nagios Logserver and having myself a more in depth look at it! Is the forum based support available for the free version?

[tmcdonald]

Customer forum access is granted for all products once you have purchased support for at least one of them. It would be too messy and complicated to separate out forum support based on product, so as long as it isn't abused we will continue doing things this way :)

[hsmith]

We support the free version in the General Forums, yeah.

[jsharris]

Outstanding! LogServer has been downloaded and installed and review is underway.

Thank you all for the quick replies!

[hsmith]

Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. Am I all right to close this thread?