Quest® Capacity Manager for SQL Server
Version 3.1
Release Notes
November 2009
Capacity Manager for SQL Server locates the problems associated with managing disk space by providing trend analysis of current disk use, forecasts of future disk space requirements, notification when there is an immediate storage need, and wizards to guide you through the steps to alleviate your disk space management problems.
Capacity Manager allows you to identify SQL Server performance problems providing graphical charts for CPU utilization, server processor queue length, instance memory usage, disk I/O rates, etc. You can select performance data collection method. One of them based on Spotlight historical data, another one used SQL Agent jobs to collect data. You can easily switch between methods using settings in Options.
Capacity Manager fully supports table and index partitioning. The Manage Partitions tool helps you analyze and manage partitioned objects, monitor partitioned data growth, and detect the largest, most fragmented or fastest growing and fragmenting partitions.
The Intelligent Defragmentation feature and Manage Fragmentation tools help you to analyze fragmentation of database objects and configure automatic reorganization of the most fragmented objects.
Capacity Manager also provides a job management tool (Manage Jobs) that helps you control, monitor, and manage Capacity Manager jobs as well as all other jobs on your system on a daily calendar. You can create, alter, or delete SQL Server jobs or you can reschedule jobs quickly by dragging and dropping jobs to another day.
The Manage SharePoint Capacity tool helps you analyze current and future disk use for SharePoint applications and track and forecast site collections and sites growth.
The Capacity Planner tool helps you calculate the effect of consolidation for several databases. Please note that Performance reports for Capacity Planner are based on Spotlight historical data only.
Quest Capacity Manager for SQL Server 3.1 release has many new features and updates.
The middleware reporting architecture has been optimized:
Memory leaks are fixed
All reports are now built using the repository data only (a direct middleware-monitored instance connection is not used)
Now you can:
Access reporting options using the Quick Start page
Generate Manage Fragmentation/Intelligent Defragmentation and Database Profile reports
Enable multiple reporting schedules
Publish a rendered PDF file locally or to the remote computer
Split attachments by sizes
New Setup Middleware wizard allows you to install, upgrade, and remove the Middleware Service.
Using this wizard you can grant the start-up account a privilege to logon as a service on the remote computer.
The wizard collects installation errors from System Event Log of the remote computer
Now, using the Middleware basic and advanced options you can:
Start and stop the service
Set logging level
Generate the support bundle that includes the Middleware activity (also available from Help |Support Bundle)
View the Middleware tasks history
Now you can use new advanced options to optimize index reorganization:
SORT_IN_TEMPDB option (also available in the Reorganize Indexes wizard)
"Switch to Bulk Log" option
Now you can define the maintenance window interval more precisely (down to 15 minutes).
The Intelligent Defragmentation report shows a number of indexes that are still in the defragmentation queue for every instance at the server group level.
Analyze Fragmentation report is extended with the list of indexes that exceeded the profiles threshold.
You can now see whether the calculated statuses are out of date on the Capacity Today, Fragmentation Today, and SharePoint Today tabs. To set the Statuses retention period, select Tools | Options | Statuses Calculation.
The following is a list of issues addressed and enhancements implemented in the release of Quest Capacity Manager for SQL Server 3.1
|
Feature |
Resolved Issue |
Change Request |
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General |
Object snapshots are not used when calculating statuses. |
ST#44017 SC#723645-1 |
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Server tree and the Overview report show Critical status if Fragmentation today is critical. |
ST#44261 | |
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If there are many disk drives, the PDF files display the instance-level charts incorrectly. |
ST#42512 SC#663993-1 | |
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Middleware |
The Middleware installation wizard cannot identify install errors during a remote installation. |
ST#43249 |
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'Out of memory' exception occurs due to memory leaks after the middleware generates more than 50Mb reports (utilizes ~1Gb of memory). |
ST#43592 | |
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'Object reference' error occurs when loading Mount Points from the Instance Overview tab. |
ST#43843 SC#720221-1 | |
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Send report feature should be optimized to work correctly when there are a great many objects in databases. |
ST#43047 SC#679871-1 | |
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Manage Fragmentation |
If USE FAST OPTION is selected for SQL Server 2000, the Extents column should contain only n/a values. |
ST#44596 SC#757806-1 |
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SORT_IN_TEMDB should be used for index defragmentation and ONLINE rebuild operations. |
ST#43956 SC#721924-1 | |
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Provide an option to switch databases from full to bulk logging and back after index reorganization is finished. |
ST#44129 | |
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It is impossible to run several Intelligent Defragmentation Jobs at the same time. |
ST#43835 | |
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Defragmentation queue is calculated incorrectly, if a new fragmentation snapshot was collected only for one server from group. |
ST#43952 SC#722443-1 | |
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Defragmentation queue calculation is incorrect, because all the estimated duration values are '00:00:00', regardless of index size. |
ST#43905 SC#722443-1: | |
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dm_db_index_physical_stats is used with LIMITED option when only DMV is selected; and with SAMPLED when DMV and FAST are selected. |
ST#44703 | |
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Spotlight |
Incorrect Spotlight Statistic Data view in Capacity Manager if non-default port is used in the Spotlight. |
ST#43783 SC#693175-1 |
The following is a list of issues known to exist at the time of Quest Capacity Manager for SQL Server release.
|
Feature |
Known Issue |
Change Request |
|
Capacity Planner |
Time Series in Consolidation Summary report If there are a lot of databases that are consolidated and Time Series is used as a forecast algorithm, the Consolidation Summary report may take a long time to load.
Unable to create Consolidation project in Offline mode Workaround: 1. Create Consolidation project in Online mode 2. Switch to Offline mode |
ST#41911
ST#42279
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Forecasting |
Forecasting is not supported when the time period between snapshots is less than one minute. |
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Time Series algorithm If you use the Time Series forecast algorithm but there are a few collected data, forecasting charts may show invalid forecasts. |
ST#41991 | |
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64-bit Platforms Support |
Creation of a collect data job fails for x64 SQL Server instances If the repository is installed on a x32 SQL Server 2000 instance, the
creation of a collect data job fails for x64 SQL Server instances with
the following exception message: "OLE DB provider ' [OLE/DB provider returned message: Unspecified error] [OLE/DB provider
returned message: The stored procedure required to complete this operation
could not be found on the server (they were supplied with the Workaround:
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SC#516198-1 |
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Repository
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Limited
support of SQL Server If you have the Capacity Manager does not support the Express edition because it does not have a SQL Server Agent. |
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Limited support of SQL Server Aliases When you define a SQL Server for the Capacity Manager Repository with the Create/Select Repository Wizard, you can use either the name of the SQL Server or its alias. If you use an alias, you must also configure all monitored instances to use the same alias for the SQL Server instance where the repository resides. Otherwise, the Collect Data wizard fails with an error that the SQL Server does not exist or access was denied. |
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Console |
Limited support of SQL Server Aliases Aliases with non-standard symbols (e.g. with single quote, with semicolon etc) are not supported. |
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SQL Server Agent stop is not detected Capacity
Manager cannot detect when a SQL Server Agent stops if the Agent Workaround: To
enable the Agent GO RECONFIGURE; GO GO RECONFIGURE GO See the Microsoft documentation at: |
ST#32092 | |
|
Status Calculation Statuses displayed in the tree view and in the Fragmentation Today page may differ from the Fragmentation Management report. Manage Fragmentation list is based on last instance or database fragmentation snapshot or object fragmentation snapshot generated after the Intel Defragmentation or Indexes Reorganization jobs complete. Statuses Calculation uses only instance or database fragmentation snapshots information and does not use the latest object fragmentation snapshots. Workaround: If you use the Intelligent Defragmentation job, schedule the Collect Data job to collect instance and database fragmentation snapshots after the Intelligent Defragmentation job is executed and before you start or schedule statuses calculation. |
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Status Calculation Capacity Manager calculates statuses from capacity, fragmentation, and performance data on monitored instances and databases. If you collect capacity information for databases only and do not collect capacity information on instances, Capacity Manager does not take into account capacity threshold settings when calculating statuses. You need to collect capacity information at the instance level to include capacity thresholds settings in the status calculation process. |
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Job Schedule Job schedule is an object in SQL Server. It has the Enabled property. The console does not check or change the Enabled status for the Job schedule. If it is disabled manually in Management Studio, the Collect Data job does not execute. |
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Collations There are different collations on monitored instances
and the repository instance. There are some problems with a SQL Server
The error is: The Use two SQL Server 2005 servers in this case. This error occurs only when you connect from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. |
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Permissions To view Database reports, you must have at least |
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Relocate Objects Wizard You need Relocation of LOB data is not supported. |
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Offline operation mode In Offline mode, the console does not support local servers registered with short names like: <local\inst1> or <.\inst1>. |
ST#0190886 | |
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Empty databases without objects could have different used log size |
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Send Report Collaboration Data Objects for the Windows 2000 (
Workaround: Add any object report to your account or put your name in the Recipients List in Report Schedule Options. |
ST#0180890 | |
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ROI Calculator If the database size is decreasing, the forecast for the next 6 months can be equal or less than zero. If the forecasted database size is less than the current database space used size, the recommended size is set to the current database space used value of +10%. |
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Object Search Capacity Manager does not display imported instances in the Search Criteria window of the Find Objects tool. |
ST#40904 | |
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Database Mail Database Mail notification is not supported for the following wizards:
|
ST#33722, 33640 | |
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Manage Capacity |
Database Capacity | Database Overview box Growth values are always calculated by the Minimum Squares rule using all snapshots loaded into the console. The calculation does not depend on Option settings. |
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Server Capacity | Instance Overview and Databases Capacity Growth values are always calculated by the Minimum Squares rule using all snapshots loaded into the console. The calculation does not depend on Option settings. |
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Shrink Database Wizard Some online databases do not appear in the list of objects for shrinking. |
ST#0176924 | |
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Database Profiles Capacity Manager cannot view a database profile if the database contains objects with identical names but different owners. |
ST#40828 | |
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Manage Fragmentation |
Database Map: Scan Density and Fragmentation Maps Database Map does not support the correct representation for objects with the same name located in different schemas. |
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Empty Database Fragmentation Fragmentation charts for an empty database (without
user objects) are always empty and fragmentation snapshots display a Fail
state. This is a result of executing the |
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Fragmentation snapshots are not collected for empty (without data) Indexes and Tables. At the Console, an error stating that all fragmentation charts for those objects are empty and you need at least 2 snapshots displays if indexes and tables do not contain data. |
ST#0164687 | |
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Defragmentation queue Default timeout can be insufficient for defragmentation queue calculation (default timeout is 30 minutes). Workaround:
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ST#44130
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Intelligent Defragmentation Capacity Manager uses the instances and databases which you select for automatic defragmentation to limit the number of objects you can select manually. Capacity Manager analyzes and reorganizes only those objects for which there are snapshots in the repository. |
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Manage Partitions |
Create Partitioned Index wizard When you select a column with an improper type for the partition key, the Next button is disabled but no message displays. |
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Create Partitioned Index wizard Only |
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Sliding Windows Scenario and Switch Partition wizards If a table contains a column with 'character' in its name and you create a new table, an error message displays after script generation and you cannot proceed through the wizard. |
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Non-partitioned tables A switch operation from a non-partitioned to a partitioned table is not supported. |
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SQL Server 2005 - partition non-partitioned tables In SQL Server 2005, any non-partitioned table is considered a partitioned table with a single partition. Capacity Manager collects information for this single partition. If you split the table, SQL Server 2005 considers new partitions unrelated to the initial partitions. Capacity Manager considers one of the new partitions as an initial partition. Partition Disk Capacity and Partition Fragmentation reports for one of the new partitions display information for the initial partition. Workaround: Create a new snapshot of the partitioned table to update information in the repository. Manage Partitions displays the correct reports for the new partitions. |
ST#31860 | |
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SQL Server 2005 - re-partition a table If data collection appears before and after re-partitioning of a table,
information in Partitions Disk Capacity and Partitions Fragmentation reports
refers to the previous partitions. For example, if you collect data about
a partitioned table, Workaround: Create a new snapshot of the partitioned table to update information in the repository. Manage Partitions displays the correct reports for the new partitions. |
ST#34476 | |
|
Collect Data |
When you have more than 800 000 partitions per database the collect data job can take up to 8 hours to execute. Workaround: Run the Collect Data wizard. On the Collect Capacity Data pane click Advanced and clear the Monitor partitions separately... checkbox. |
ST#42953 SC#683450-1 |
|
Manage SharePoint Capacity |
Delete SharePoint registration Deleting the SharePoint registration from the tree view does not delete data about SharePoint from the repository. |
ST#37688 |
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Monitored Server |
Change servers computer name When you change the computer name, you also have to rename the instance. If you are running SQL Server 7.0, after renaming the SQL Server machine, the SQL Server service fails to start with the following error message "Your installation was corrupted or has been tampered with. Workaround: Re-run the SQL Server set up. After upgrading, the necessary SQL Server registry entries are reset with the new computer name and you can start the SQL Server. After restarting, use Toad or Query Analyzer to run the following commands: EXEC GO EXEC GO Restart your SQL Server service. Connect using Toad or Query Analyzer and run the following command (it should output the new server name): SELECT @@ GO If you are running SQL Server 2000, the new name is
recognized the next time SQL Server service starts. You do not have to
re-run the setup. However, you have to run the |
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Manage Jobs |
The Console stops responding if you try to load an old job with a large job history. For example, the Console stops responding if you try to view the jobs for an instance when one of the jobs was created more than a year ago and is executed on an hourly basis. |
ST#40926 |
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Jobs |
Job schedule If the collect data job schedule has been changed (e.g. renamed) by an external application, it won’t be recognized by the Collect data wizard and new default schedule will be created. Workaround: Proceed to the Capacity Data step using the Collect data wizard. To alter job schedule click Browse, then Change. |
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Jobs fail to start SQL Server Agent jobs have an owner field. If the owner account does not have rights to log into SQL Server, all jobs created by the owner fail to start. Possible use case: The system administrator with account DOMAIN1\User1 was created to run collect data jobs at several monitored SQL Server instances. After some period of time, the owner left the company and the system administrator disabled the DOMAIN1\User1 account. After the first restart of SQL Server instances, all jobs created by the that administrator fail to start. In this case, the jobs owner account should be changed to another account which has access to SQL Server. |
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Middleware Service |
Installation Remote middleware installation fails when the Workaround: Select the Save configuration (manual installation) option on the Installation Type pane of the Middleware Installation Wizard. |
ST#43594 |
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Registry |
The Capacity Manager installer creates two keys in two locations each: Locations: |
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Installation:
To upgrade from version 3.0.x, run the Quest Capacity Manager for SQL Server 3.1 installation package.
Note: To upgrade the Capacity Manager 2.5 or 2.6 repository to 3.1, you need to upgrade to 3.0 first.
Middleware and Repository upgrade:
When launching Capacity Manager 3.1 confirm you would like to upgrade the repository and complete the Middleware and repository upgrade.
Before installing Quest Capacity Manager for SQL Server, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:
| Platform | Pentium IV (Core 2 Duo recommended) or compatible processor |
| Memory |
512 MB of RAM minimum. The memory required may vary based on the following:
|
| Monitor | |
| Hard Disk Space | Minimum 200MB of disk space for a full installation (includes up to 54 MB of temporary setup files that are removed automatically after installation) |
| Operating System |
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 Microsoft Windows XP Professional, 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP4 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit) SP2 Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) SP1 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit) SP2 Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) |
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Database Server |
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 (32-bit or 64-bit) SP4 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (32-bit or 64-bit) SP3 or later Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (32-bit or 64-bit) SP1 |
|
Database Client |
(Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005/2008 client software and Backward Compatibility Tools for SQL Server 2005 and 2008 contain all required components.) |
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Additional Software |
.Net Framework 3.0 must be installed before installing Quest Capacity Manager.
SharePoint 2003, Office SharePoint Server 2007, or SharePoint Services 2.0 or 3.0 must be used on instances monitored with the Manage SharePoint Capacity tool.
Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise 3.0, 3.0.2, or 6.0 must be configured for instances to use the Performance Capacity tool. |
This section contains information about installing and operating this product in non-English configurations, such as those needed by customers outside of North America. This section does not replace the materials about supported platforms and configurations found elsewhere in the product documentation.
This release is Unicode-enabled and supports any character set. In this release, all product components should be configured to use the same or compatible character encoding and should be installed to use the same locale and regional options. This release is targeted to support operations in the following regions: North America, Western Europe and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Far-East Asia, Japan.
The Quest Capacity Manager release package contains the following products:
Get the latest product information, find
helpful resources, and join a discussion with the Capacity Manager Quest
team and another community members at http://
| info@quest.com | |
| Quest Software, Inc. World Headquarters 5 Polaris Way Aliso USA | |
| Web |
Refer to our web site for regional and international office information.
Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of
a Quest product or who have purchased a commercial version and have a
valid maintenance contract.
Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with
From
View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support
programs, online services, contact information, and policy and procedures.
The guide is available at: http://
© 2009 Quest Software, Inc.
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Email: |
Refer to our web site for regional and international office information.
Quest, Quest Software, and the Quest Software logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Quest Software, Inc in the United States of America and other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks used in this guide are property of their respective owners.
Capacity Manager includes software developed by Developer Express,