Hash warnings (last hour)

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Rating: 3.0/5 (3 votes cast)
3 15,493 0 ,
This metric measures the number of hash warnings events in the last hour. A hash warning event means that part of the data processed for a hash operation was written to tempdb. Read more

Processes in a runnable state (worker query)

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Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
0 9,332 1
This metric measures the load of running processes within SQL Server. It doesn’t show any specific problems, but can act as a measure of the pressure being put on your SQL Server instance. Read more

Out of memory errors

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Rating: 5.0/5 (2 votes cast)
2 12,931 0 , ,
The number of out of memory errors that have occurred within a rolling five minute window. If you just want to keep an eye out for any memory errors, you can watch the ring buffers for the Out of Memory error alert when it gets registered there. Read more

Buffer pressure

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Rating: 4.0/5 (5 votes cast)
5 17,127 1 , ,
Trying to determine if you have pressure in your buffer allocations can be difficult. Buffer cache hit ratio is an almost useless metric, so you need a mechanism to let you know if there’s a problem in that area. Read more

Ad hoc query stubs in plan cache

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Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)
1 10,368 0 ,
This metric measures the total number of one-time use ad hoc queries in the plan cache that have been stored in the form of a stub, not as a full execution plan. Read more

WriteLog wait time

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Rating: 5.0/5 (2 votes cast)
2 27,124 0 ,
During a transaction, data is written to the log cache so that it’s ready to be written to the log file on commit, or can be rolled back if necessary. When the log cache is being flushed to disk, the SQL Server session will wait on the WriteLog wait type. Read more

What are custom metrics?

The SQL Monitor custom metric feature lets you run T-SQL queries against your SQL Servers to collect specific data. You can analyze and receive alerts about your custom data just like everything else SQL Monitor collects.

But what if you don’t want to write your own queries? No problem. Redgate has brought together a range of quality custom metrics for you to use in SQL Monitor, which are all are free, tried and tested. You can install straight away, and use the resources on this site to help you write your own.

See the Getting Started guides

What is SQL Monitor?

SQL Monitor is a SQL Server performance monitoring tool that gives you real-time and historical SQL Server performance data with alerts and diagnostics.

With its embedded expertise from SQL Server experts and MVPs, it gives you the information and advice you need to find and fix issues before users are even aware.

Find out more about SQL Monitor

Featured custom metrics

  • Total database file size

    by Hugo Kornelis | 5,974 views |

    This custom metric measures the total database file size (data files and log file combined). An increase in this metric signals that a database was grown. When not done by the DBA, this is an autogrow. Excessive autogrow events should be prevented as this can result to file fragmentation. Try to manually grow files before […] Read more

  • Number of active backups and restores

    by SQL Monitor Team | 4,654 views |

    This metric will display the total number of active backups and restores on a server. This can be used to correlate with other metrics to explain why disk IO and CPU usage could have changed. Read more

  • Full backup to odd path

    by Eelco Drost | 4,287 views |

    This custom metric queries the MSDB database to search for multiple paths for a full backup Read more

See all custom metrics