Help! Must Clone Alerts and Customizations for REPLACEMENT

PDinCA

Please advise on how to clone the full set of customizations, suppressions and custom metrics that have been in place for nearly two years, monitoring a SQL2005 cluster so the exact configuration can be used on the replacement SQL2012 cluster.

I searched the Support Center for "copy alert" and of the near 40 hits, none appeared applicable.

A SQL update script would be brilliant as the machine names of the cluster and its 2 nodes are all known...

PDinCA

I am DEEPLY saddened by the response from RG Support that boils down to a "no can do - you're on your own".

Having been a staunch supporter of Red Gate for over 7 years, this is a sad day - a sound demerit earned!

The only "plus" and it's a very small "plus" is that Support stated, "There is a feature request to implement a feature to allow for the export of the custom/customized alerts in SQL Monitor. The number for your reference is SRP-3871." Is there a UserVoice for SQL Monitor I can add this to, with the SRP reference, unless there's one there already, of course...?

Sorry, the other "plus", but not product related, is that RG supplied two additional 14-day licenses at my request so I can actually do the work. THAT IS APPRECIATED or I'd be dead in the water (once a server's keys are taken away, you can't see the configurations any more, so be warned!)

As SQL Monitor is on version THREE, one would expect that "mature features" would exist whereby migrations and replications would be a snap.

I'd like to know just how seriously is Red Gate "considering" SRP-3871 for inclusion in the next major release...? I can't be the only person needing to export, rename server, import, can I? I only have 5 databases and about 30 jobs to configure but having looked at the configuration page and the hierarchy of Alerts with override designations and having to drill into each one to get the details, this would be a ridiculous undertaking for anything like some of the servers I've read about on the 'net!

As it is, today will be entirely taken up with manually viewing then recreating all my custom alerts, custom metrics, et al, down to jobs and databases. What a monumental waste of time!

Would the Product Manager care to chip in some insight, please?

Would the Support Team kindly work with Development to construct a simple set of T-SQL scripts that can "CLONE ALERTS FOR A SERVER/CLUSTER"? Cloning serves for both server addition and server replacement, BTW.

How hard can this really be for the Company that made the product - seriously...?

Frustratedly, but still a Red Gate advocate,

Stephen.

PDinCA

DISASTER! BE WARNED!

In the course of my support call, Pasadena Office, I was instructed to temporarilly unlicense the original cluster.

DO NOT COMPLY!

ALL, yes, ALL customized alerts at all levels below (local) are GONE, GONE, GONE!

DOES THIS "CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE" ADD ANY IMPETUS TO THE NEED TO RAPIDLY DEVELOP AN EXPORT/IMPORT/CLONE FACILITY, EVEN IF IT ISN'T IN THE UI PER SE?

Yours, sincerely hosed

Stephen

priyasinha

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your post and feedback. Apologies for delay in responding to your post.

Regarding this feature request of copying configuration from one server to another, we do hear from users but not very often. Hence, it is lower in priority list w.r.t some other feature which users have requested. Having said that I completely understand that it must be painful if you do have to do it manually.

Regarding your comment about losing configuration when you unlicensed, could you confirm that you unlicensed the server and not removed the server? Unlicensing server doesn't remove any configuration and you should still be able to see all the historic data, alerts and configuration. Unlicensing only stops data collection and alerting but it doesn't purge any data at all.

Regarding your current issue of moving configuration, we will try our best to help as much as we can. I am sending you a detailed email in few minutes time with more information. Let me know if you don't receive an email in next half hour.

Thanks,
Priya
Project Manager, SQL Monitor
Red Gate Software Ltd.

PDinCA

Hello Priya,

I can confirm that I merely unlicensed the original server.

The tell-tale "oops!" came to light when I tried to access the heavily populated "exclude list" of strings for a Long Running Query Alert. The entire list was gone. I had clicked to customize the Alert on the NEW cluster and tried to use the OLD as the reference - two years of customization to quieten down "noise" was well worth copying over...

I then looked for other customizations on the original cluster and none existed other than 3 under the "Local" node - nothing for jobs, database, etc.

As the new cluster went live over 2 weeks ago, I have been customizing the Alerts over that time. In addition, the hosting Company has now decommissioned the cluster and I have removed it, along with history et al from the RG DB, so there's no help you can provide...

Thanks for trying, though, that is certainly appreciated...

(Now if only I had that Export file of customizations... )