Connection Details for Azure SQL Managed Instance | Spotlight Enterprise Documentation

Monitor an Azure SQL Managed instance by supplying the following connection details to Spotlight.

How to enter / edit connection details

Use a Spotlight Client to enter / edit connection details.

From the Spotlight Client

Click Configure | Connections.
Double click Add new connection.
Fill in the connection details.

Tip: Spotlight can add multiple Azure SQL Managed instances via discovery or by importing details from a file. See the Connection Discovery Wizard.

Connection details

Address

Specify the connect string used to link to the Azure SQL Managed instance (that is, the Server Name, Server Instance Name, or IP address). You may also need to specify the port number, if required.

Display Name

The display name of the Azure SQL Managed instance connection. The display name is used in all displays including the connection tree, connection lists, reports, tables, grids and charts, alarms, alarm actions, alarm descriptions, configuration files, template files, Heatmap and drilldowns.

The display name can be up to 255 characters long. Use letters and numbers. Do not use special characters like % and spaces in the display name. The display name is not case sensitive. The display name must be unique; no two Spotlight connections to Azure SQL Managed instance can have the same display name.

If you don’t create a display name then Spotlight uses the instance address for display purposes.

Authentication

Specify the authentication for Spotlight to use to connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance.

Select the SQL Server Authentication from the Authentication field and fill in the User and Password fields. Since this user is a database user, ensure that the user has sufficient account permissions to retrieve performance data from the Azure SQL Managed instance. Typically the account will be a member of the sysadmin server role. It could be an Azure SQL Managed Instance login (such as ‘sa’). If this is not feasible in your environment, see Grant Account Permissions.

The connection will fail if the account permissions are insufficient to allow Spotlight to collect the data it needs.

Select the Microsoft Entra Password from the Authentication field and fill in the User and Password fields. Ensure the user is allocated as an admin user for Azure SQL Managed instance active directory.

Select the Microsoft Entra Integrated from the Authentication field. User and Password fields are disabled for this authentication mode and will be using Dignostic Server credentials. Ensure the user is allocated as an admin user for Azure SQL Managed instance active directory and Spotlight Diagnostic Server is logged in using the same user credentials.

Select the Microsoft Entra MFA from the Authentication field and fill User and Application ID fields. Ensure the user is allocated as an admin user for Azure SQL Managed instance active directory and Application ID is provided for Azure SQL Managed Instance connection.

Use Extended Events

Selected

The Spotlight Diagnostic Server will use Extended Events to collect data from the Azure SQL Managed instance. The data is used by:

SQL Server | Workload Analysis Drilldown
SQL Server | Wait Events Drilldown
Deadlock checks: SQL Server | SQL Activity Drilldown, Locks - Deadlocks Alarm.

If you select to use Extended Events (following a period of time when the use of Extended Events was deselected) the SQL Server | Workload Analysis drilldown and SQL Server | Wait Events drilldown may take a few minutes to repopulate with data.

Min Duration

The starting minimum duration to use to collect for Wait Events and Workload Analysis. Local Extended Event is used to customize/configure minimum duration per connection. This is optional field that can be set for any Azure SQL Managed Instance connection by navigating from Azure SQL Managed Instance connection | Properties | Details | Advanced Options » | Min duration.

NOTES

When the Min Duration parameter under local and global extended events have either same or different values, the local extended event value is used by the respective connection and other Azure SQL Managed Instance connections(for which local extended event value are not set) uses global extended event value.
When the Min Duration parameter under Local Extended Event is left blank, Azure SQL Managed Instance connection uses the Global Extended Event specified in the Spotlight Option settings.

Not Selected

The Spotlight Diagnostic Server will use SQL Server Trace to collect data for deadlock checks. The Spotlight Diagnostic Server will NOT collect data for the SQL Server | Workload Analysis drilldown and SQL Server | Wait Events drilldown.

If you set this value after the connection to the Azure SQL Managed Instance is established then the change will not show up immediately on the user interface as the Workload Analysis drilldown and Wait Events drilldown will continue to show historical data till no data is available.

Obscure string literals in SQL text and parameters in query plans

Selected

Placeholder data will replace string literals in all displays of the SQL Statement and Query Plan. This protects privacy information that may be contained in those literals.

Large numbers (greater than 99,999,999) are replaced with 987654321.

Not Selected

Large numbers and string literals in SQL Statements and Query Plans are displayed as is.

Exclude Spotlight sessions from Wait Events and Workload Analysis

When selected Spotlight sessions are excluded from the Wait Events and Workload Analysis drilldowns.

Store SQL text and query plans in playback

When Selected, Spotlight stores SQL query statements and plans in the Playback Database for this Azure SQL Managed Instance connection. This data will be available during playback of events and data collected in the recent past in the SQL Activity drilldown | Sessions page and the SQL Activity drilldown | Query Execution Statistics page.

Note: Data will not be stored if the Spotlight Diagnostic Server setting has been disabled, see Configure | Diagnostic Server | Store SQL Text and Query Plans in Playback.

Connection Failure Properties

Set the connection timeout and the number of times Spotlight should attempt to connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance before raising the Connection Failure alarm.

Tip: If the number of times Spotlight should attempt to connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance before raising an alarm is greater than 9 then type that number into the given field.

Alarms template

Select the alarms configuration template to apply to this connection.

Select from any of the Azure SQL Managed Instance configuration templates that you have created through Configure Alarms or select Factory Settings Template to apply the Factory Settings shipped with Spotlight.

Note: The template will apply to the host of the Azure SQL Managed instance if identified. The host is identified in the Connection section of the Connection Details page.

Tip: The alarms template option is applicable only when creating a new Azure SQL Managed instance connection. To apply a template to an existing Azure SQL Managed instance connection, see Configuration Templates.

Test the connection

On entering / modifying connection details in the Spotlight Client, click Test to test the connection.

Troubleshooting

Connection to the Azure SQL Managed instance

If Spotlight cannot connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance then use another tool such as Microsoft’s SQL Server Management Studio or sqlcmd to connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance. Is the issue with Spotlight’s ability to connect to the with any any/every tool’s ability to connect to the Azure SQL Managed instance?

As data load increases in Azure SQL Managed Instance, Spotlight may experience some performance issues. For additional information, refer to the following links:

Release Notes

Check the Spotlight Enterprise Release Notes for known issues.

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