Symptoms: SQL job failed
Impact: High
This alert means that one (or more) of the steps in the designated SQL job did not finish successfully.
Expected behavior:
SQL jobs should not fail.
Possible causes of failure
Timeout – SQL busy Priority: Medium
Recommended action :
Track job event to locate the step that failed. Monitor the level of available memory, disk free space and page files life to provide the necessary resources. If possible, schedule the job to run in an appropriate timeslot.
Code error Priority: Medium
Backing up over a network increases overall efficiency by reducing the number of backup devices. However, it also introduces another point of failure into the backup process.
Recommended action :
Check and restore network connections on both server and backup device. Replace any failed components. If necessary, shift backups onto local hard-wired resources.
Inefficient query design Priority: Medium
Incorrect query code may result in inefficient data access.
Recommended action :
Look for functions over fields that can be tuned or avoided in order to improve performance. Minimize the number of repeats (reading records more than once) as much as possible. Minimize the number of fields and records in the result sets as much as possible so that they would only return what is needed and nothing more. Break complex queries to more simple steps. Look for often used “Cluster Lookup” and “Hush Merger” and minimize their frequency by optimizing the code. Make sure that each transaction has COMMIT (in case of no errors) and ROLLBACK (in any case of an error) statements where applicable.
Missing indexes Priority: Medium
Recommended action :
Detect missing indexes by looking at the execution plans.
Background
SQL agents and others that are specific to your own design requirements trigger jobs that run specific functions (one example is transaction log backup). AimBetter’s console notifies job failure via an alert and the source and reason can be traced through the event log, to allow quick resolution.
