PRTG Manual: WMI Microsoft SQL Server Sensor

Credentials

This sensor requires credentials for Windows systems.

Target system

You can only add this sensor to a target system that runs a Microsoft SQL database.

Supported versions

This sensor supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to Microsoft SQL Server 2025.

The list of supported versions:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016
• Microsoft SQL Server 2017
• Microsoft SQL Server 2019
• Microsoft SQL Server 2022
• Microsoft SQL Server 2025

WSMan

This sensor requires that the parent probe uses WSMan for WMI connections.

Meta-scan

This sensor uses the meta-scan feature. After sensor creation, some settings might appear for reference purposes only.

WMI permissions

This sensor requires membership in the Remote Management Users group, Performance Monitor Users group, and access permissions for the WMI namespace Root\CIMV2 and the Service Control Manager on the target system. For more information about required permissions for non-admin users, see https://helpdesk.paessler.com/en/support/solutions/articles/76000088235.

Windows Compatibility Options

This sensor uses only WSMan Port and Connection Security from the Windows Compatibility Options.

Add Sensor dialog

The name and description of the service in the Add Sensor dialog appear in the language of the device's Windows installation.

IPv6

This sensor supports IPv6.

Performance impact

This sensor has a low performance impact.

Service Name

The name of the server instance that this sensor monitors.

The display name is provided as returned by the SQL server.

If the service name changes after sensor creation, for example because the SQL Server instance was renamed or migrated, the sensor might enter the Down status. You might need to manually change this setting. Click the lock icon to edit this setting. We strongly recommend that you only change it if the Paessler support team explicitly asks you to do so.
Wrong usage can result in incorrect monitoring data.

Display Name

The service that this sensor monitors.

The service name is provided as returned by the SQL server.

Performance Counter Groups

Select the performance counter groups to monitor.

• General Statistics (default): Creates the User Connections, Logins/Sec, and Logouts/Sec channels.
• Access Methods: Creates the Full Scans/Sec, Page Splits/Sec, and Table Lock Escalations/Sec channels.
• Buffer Manager: Creates the Buffer Cache Hit Ratio, Database Pages, and Page Life Expectancy channels.
• Memory Manager: Creates the Connection Memory, Optimizer Memory, Total Server Memory, Target Server Memory, and SQL Cache Memory channels.
• Locks: Creates the Lock Requests/Sec, Average Wait Time, and Deadlocks/Sec channels.
• SQL Statistics: Creates the Batch Requests/Sec, SQL Compilations/Sec, and SQL Recompilations/Sec channels.

You cannot change this value after sensor creation.

Primary Channel

Select a channel from the list to define it as the primary channel. In the device tree, PRTG displays the last value of the primary channel below the sensor's name. The available options depend on what channels are available for this sensor.

You can set a different primary channel later by clicking below a channel gauge on the sensor's Overview tab.

Graph Type

Define how this sensor shows different channels:

• Show channels independently (default): Show a graph for each channel.
• Stack channels on top of each other: Stack channels on top of each other to create a multi-channel graph. This generates a graph that visualizes the different components of your total traffic.
  You cannot use this option in combination with manual Vertical Axis Scaling (available in the channel settings).

Stack Unit

This setting is only visible if you select Stack channels on top of each other above.

Select a unit from the list. PRTG stacks all channels with this unit on top of each other. By default, you cannot exclude single channels from stacking if they use the selected unit. However, there is an advanced procedure to do so.

Result Handling

Define what PRTG does with the sensor result:

• Discard result (default): Do not store the sensor result.
• Store result: Store the sensor result and the last response in the \Logs\sensors subfolder of the PRTG data directory on the probe system. The file name is Result of Sensor [ID].log. This setting is for debugging purposes. PRTG overwrites this file with each scanning interval.

This option is not available when the sensor runs on the hosted probe of a PRTG Hosted Monitor instance.

In a cluster, PRTG stores the result in the PRTG data directory of the master node.

Average Wait Time

The average amount of wait time for each lock request that resulted in a wait

Batch Requests/Sec

The number of Transact-SQL command batches received. This statistic is affected by all constraints (such as input/output, number of users, cache size, or complexity of requests). High batch requests mean good throughput.

Buffer Cache Hit Ratio

The percentage of pages found in the buffer cache without having to read from disk. The ratio is the total number of cache hits divided by the total number of cache lookups since an instance of SQL Server was started. After a long period of time, the ratio moves very little.

Because reading from the cache is much less expensive than reading from disk, you want this ratio to be high. Generally, you can increase the buffer cache hit ratio by increasing the amount of memory available to SQL Server.

Connection Memory

The total amount of dynamic memory the server is using for maintaining connections

Database Pages

The number of pages in the buffer pool with database content

Deadlocks/Sec

The number of lock requests that resulted in a deadlock

Full Scans/Sec

The number of unrestricted full scans. These can be either base-table or full-index scans.

Lock Requests/Sec

The number of new locks and lock conversions requested from the lock manager

Logins/Sec

The total number of logins started

Logouts/Sec

The total number of logout operations started

Optimizer Memory

The total amount of dynamic memory the server is using for query optimization

Page Life Expectancy

The number of seconds a page stays in the buffer pool without references

Page Splits/Sec

The number of page splits that occur as the result of overflowing index pages

SQL Cache Memory

The total amount of dynamic memory the server is using for the dynamic SQL cache

SQL Compilations/Sec

The number of SQL compilations per second. Indicates the number of times the compile code path is entered. Includes compiles because of recompiles. After the SQL Server user activity is stable, this value reaches a steady state.

SQL Recompilations/Sec

The number of SQL recompiles per second. Counts the number of times recompiles are triggered. In general, you want the recompiles to be low.

Table Lock Escalations/Sec

The number of times that locks on a table were escalated

Target Server Memory

The total amount of dynamic memory the server can consume

Total Server Memory

The total amount of dynamic memory that the server is using

User Connections

The number of user connections. Because each user connection consumes some memory, configuring overly high numbers of user connections could affect throughput.

This channel is the primary channel by default.

Downtime

In the channel table on the Overview tab, this channel never shows any values. PRTG uses this channel in graphs and reports to show the amount of time in which the sensor was in the Down status.