Custom Metrics

SQL Server provides hundreds of commands for administrators to track performance of their databases. These are metric commands. The software comes with canned metric scripts already available, but SQL Server metrics are still highly customizable.

Database managers rely on metrics to maintain their server’s performance. Each has a different idea of what is important to monitor and develop scripts to provide that monitoring. Creating custom metrics requires a very good idea of what each metric command line does. It also requires a savvy understanding of the results. By creating custom metrics, an administrator can create tables, histories, and visual graphics of different scenarios as part of monitoring or researching their database.

There are many third-party companies that provide customized solutions and some that allow an administrator to create custom metrics through a GUI interface, rather than create them at command line level. These software products created for providing more intricate metrics of a database’s performance have used these commands and typically include GUIs that translate the results into simple graphs and spreadsheets. Using metric command line code to acquire performance data results in lines of data as opposed to graphics, when using custom scripts.