Vroom Performance Suite releases

New 🎉

• Add ability to ignore some command types.

Changed 😎

• Sort the insight groups by name.
• Add database filter for insight dashboard.
• Add database name column to missing index view.
• Add database filter to notable query search.
• Add "truncate query to" option to ensure that we do not capture large queries.
• SQL Server object audit, database list drop-down is not ordered.

Fixes 🐛

• Resolved divide-by-zero on system insights.

New 🎉

• Removed requirement to select individual databases for object and security auditing. If the server has an auditing license, then the databases are audited.
• Removed requirement for a computer to be placed into a SOX scope for audit data to be collected.

Changed 😎

• Added database object and security audit filters to history view screens.
• Added ability to view scripts that modified objects or permissions.
• Added description to audit class and audit action. (e.g. action “GRANT”, class “DATABASE”).

Fixes 🐛

• Resolved serialization issue with database object audit.

New 🎉

• n/a

Changed 😎

• Removed need to select individual databases for audit. SQL Server auditing is now global.
• Bug fixes
• Installer fixes.
• Dependency fixes preventing collection service from starting.
• Supporting audit tables were not populated.
• Fixed performance dashboard chart labels.

Fixed 🐛

• Resolved divide by zero error for various SQL insights.

Major additions

• Added MySQL server monitoring support.

Enhancements

• Performance improvements.
• Installation improvements.

Bug fixes

• Resolved misc. IIS monitoring warnings.
• Resolved issue where UI would close when drilling into some insights.

Major additions

• No major changes with this release.

Enhancements

• No notable enhancements with this release.

Bug fixes

• Computer tag fixes.
• No longer shows tags for inactive computers.
• Fixed crash when clicking "clear selection" on empty tag list.
• Report modifications, additions and bug fix.
• Added announcement group ribbon icon.
• Changed licence dates to UTC.
• Removed bad bindings that were causing issues with AlertOperator edit
• Added a ton of new alert fields.
• Fixed bug with updating sql auth password

Major additions

• No major changes with this release.

Enhancements

• No notable enhancements with this release.

Bug fixes

• Removed addition of credential when using SQL Auth.
• Azure basic tier data collection fixes.
• System insights now honor database status (offline, suspect, etc).

Major additions

• No major changes with this release.

Enhancements

• No notable enhancements changes with this release.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug where insights dashboard log file insights would display the incorrect log file properties.
• Fixed various types of data collection for legacy SQL versions

Major additions

• No major changes with this release.

Enhancements

• Added in-app update notifications
• Exclude any insight dashboard servers that currently have zero insights.

Bug fixes

• Fixed performance issue with credential host.
• Fixed label spacing on computer performance snapshot.
• Critical database schema installer fixes

Major additions

• No major changes with this release.

Enhancements

• Added drill-into blocking from insights, system performance, deadlocks, unused indexes, and database files.
• Added auto-filtering on queries, deadlocks, blocks and missing indexes.

Bug fixes

• Group fixes to specific insights.
• Fixed label spacing on computer performance snapshot.
• Fixed issue with built-in caching that causes significant cache misses.
• Fixed UI performance issue when displaying query performance details.

Major additions

• Added new insights screen where intelligence is applied to collected data and presented for user action.
• Added support for monitoring SQL Server on Linux. This includes Linux OS insights though the lens of SQL Server.
• Support for only monitoring SQL Server (without Windows or WMI). Actionable data can now be collected from SQL Server by only exposing a single port. WMI is more robust, but no longer required.

Enhancements

• Added performance visualization to query performance detail drill though.
• Created consistent query detail drill though. Now you’ll find the same data regardless of which screen you drill in from.
• Added date/time picker to query performance detail drill though. Now you can expand the date on the same screen without going to a different screen to see how a query has performed in the past.
• Drill in through the performance snapshot now sorts the drill grid descending based on which chart the drill in originated from.
• Added default pivot-charts views. Now you can more easily get started using the pivot-charts with usable built in examples.

Bug fixes

• Bug fixes to SignalR UI notification.
• Custom alerts will no-longer be overwritten on upgrade.

Major additions

• Added support for SQL Azure PaaS using SQL authentication.

Enhancements

• Added min, avg, max colors to real-time and notable query search queries.
• Added drill-down into wait time breakdown.
• Added query duration context to all query performance grids.

Bug fixes

• Corrected the order of execution history views.

General Changes for Minor Release

v1.0.8.6 is a minor release of the Vroom Performance Suite.

• Added advanced object tests during initial configuration.
• Added intuitive method for establishing monitoring with SQL authentication.
• General appearance tweaks.
• Various minor bug fixes.

Installer

• Added switches to allow skipping SQL admin checking. This is useful when no objects need to be created that require admin rights. Pass /nosqladmin to the installer executable.
• Added security support for installing using a UPN.
• Dropped multi-server scale-out installation from mainstream distribution - available upon request for larger installations.
• Added feature which will add the VPS service credential as the first usable credential to VPS.
• Added support for VPS meta-base SQL authentication. This is most important to workgroup configurations.

Data Collection

• Removed unnecessary decryption inside credential host.
• Changed the way that databases, wait types and application names are ignored when configured to do so. When configured to be ignored, they are ignored unlessthey are involved in blocking - and all ignoring is done at the service level instead of passing the work to the monitored servers.

Interface

• Added domain/workgroup, credential and computer validation and remediation information.
• Moved the alert dashboard to be the default view when logging into VPS. This now functions as the suites main dashboard.
• Added ability to select monitoring modules when adding a computer.
• Resolved issue with deadlocks sometimes not showing the header text.
• Dropped support for health screen - those have been moved to "canned alerts" and drive the main dashboard.
• Added ability to view the original SQL Statement and as well as the scrubbed/anonymized SQL statement. This is optional for HIPAA, SOX, and PCI compliance.
• Drop-down server selection lists now default select the only value when they contain only one item.
• Added additional SQL execution plan nodes.

Charting

• Added SQL disk/file latency metrics to real-time dashboard.
• Added CPU per-database and disk latency per-database.
• Added calendar-picker for dashboard screens.
• Added real-time page file info and reordered activity columns.
• Converted various charts to stacked area.
• Added coordination of colors for associated series across charts.
• Tuned data aggregation and set it to run more frequently.
• Resolved real-time metrics not populating on SQL 2014.
• Remove real-time chart legend items when series has low/no data points. Clutter reduction!

• Added WMI encryption, which defaults to enabled.
• Replaced threading model for more efficient and secure utilization of security tokens.
• Added full Windows fail-over cluster awareness.
• Added full SQL Server fail-over cluster awareness.
• Added full VMWare ESXi vSphere integration
  • Datacenters, hosts and VMWare clusters are automatically added to monitoring.
  • VMs and Virtual Disks are automatically added to monitoring.
  • VMs and Virtual Disks are automatically mapped to monitored computers.
  • Added new alerting category for virtual attributes and performance.
  • Windows and Disk alerts inherit VMware metrics for centralized alerting.
• Added VM properties to various computer views.
• Added VM properties to various disk views.

Features

• Added explicit support for Windows Workgroups (non-active directory installations).
• Added ability to modify entity attributes via UI.
• Added default date to real-time query drill through.
• Added SQL-authentication support for meta-base database in monolithic installer.

Issues

• Added service termination upon invalid configuration. This is to ensure that a faulty start doesn’t appear to function correctly.
• Resolved issue where service would report successful startup when the metabase couldn’t be contacted.
• Resolved various issues with monolithic installer in workgroup environments.
• Resolved sorting issue with VMWare CPU charts.
• Fixed miss-configured caching server for web-services.

SQL Server Database Collection

• Added option to ignore read-only databases.
• Added attribute to allow for ignoring individual databases on a per instance level.

SQL Server Sessions

• Added new plan explorer to breakdown each statement of an observed batch.

Fixes

• Resolved issue that caused VPS to not collect some metrics when a database permission is lacking.
• Resolved issue which would cause duplicate SQL Instances to appear in the server explorer.
• Resolved licensing issues which could cause VPS to collect some metrics twice.
• Resolved issue where installer would warn of corrupt license if the repository is moved to another server.
• Moved user login save location to user specific windows location.

Misc.

• 3rd party library upgrade.

Installer

• Reworked certificate generation methods.

Physical Disk Collections

• Added trilevel checks for HDD health to allow alerts to reliably detect failing physical disk drives.

UI Misc.

• Altered the way in which the last selected Server/SQL Instance maintained from one dashboard to the next.

Real-Time Dashboard.

• Changed disk performance metrics. Now displays bytes instead of IOPS.
• Added total network throughput metrics in bytes sent and bytes received.

Misc.

• Drastically tuned momentary aggregation worker. This will allow for the same built-in data warehouse functionality, only with greatly reduced resources on the VPS server.

Fixes

• Fixed bug for new installations which caused encryption not properly initialize.

Alerting

• Added occurrence date to the available deadlock alert fields.
• Added date-time formatting for all alerts. This allows VPS to use dates/times in alert identifiers and conditions.
• Removed SQL Server Blocks alert category, it was made redundant with this update. (All block alerting is still available).

SQL Server Query Observations

• Added the collection of additional cursor information when they are observed to be running.
• Added credential pooled processing to more efficiently collect session information.
• Added command type to notable query collection.
• Added execution count filter to NQ search.
• Added new SQL Logic Hashing. Breaking from the built-in SQL hashing - VPs is now capable of tying all types of collected events to a unified event.
• Added parent-query collection and moved collection point to the parent. Child queries are still collected but without performance metrics.
• Notable query search now allows for direct search of both real-time and historical user sessions.
• Added user name, host name, application name, and object name to all notable query grids.

Statistics

• Added collection of SQL Server Statistics. It is now possible to track data volume changes per-table over time.

Deadlocks

• Added interpretation and collection of SQL Agent Job names.
• Added NQID and its associated alias to deadlock, waiters, owners, and added drill-through links.

Blocks

• Added blocked process lineage snapshots, allows VPS to retroactively display block the evolution of block chains.
• Removed the option to view current or historical blocks. All blocks are collected and displayed in real-time.
• Added NQID and its associated alias to blocks and added drill-through links.
• Added database name and wait-time filtering.

UI Misc.

• Added ability to specify a custom color per computer for the server explorer tabs.
• Added additional drill-through level from the performance snapshot screen, this allowing an initial lightweight drill into the distinct queries and then a drill into the sessions.
• Rearranged many grid columns and added various drill throughs for uniformity.
• Standardized date-time default values to include the remainder of the present day, this is to accommodate the various data points that are now collected in real time.
• Converted all displays of the NQID to include the query alias, allowing users to track custom query names throughout VPS.

Misc.

• Added momentary aggregation worker, this will periodically update the operational data store (ODS) for better UI performance and real-time analytics.
• Added credential pooled processing to more efficiently collect real-time session information.
• Added persistent process recycling which allows for more efficient collection over extended periods of time.
• Added auto-initialization of Admin Tool configuration at install time.
• Added SQL Logic Hash rebuild option to Admin Tool.
• Updated to the latest production version of SMO and related libraries.
• Updated to the latest production version of SQL Reporting libraries.
• Swapped out performance snapshot to use session aggregates from ODS as opposed to real-time aggregations.

Fixes

• Resolved issue with “duplicate key” and “cannot insert null value” when collecting workload observations with multiple execution plans.
• Resolved issues collecting SQL Server database metrics when configured growth rates were greater than 4GB.
• Resolved issue which caused alerts to not become triggered if they contained no conditions.
• Resolved issues which caused SQL Server Agent Job notifications to not be dispatched.
• Resolved issue which would sometimes merged unassociated block headers.
• Resolved Int32 overflow during database size calculation.
• Resolved issue with acknowledging/ignoring alerts from the computer overview screen.
• Resolved issue with manual reports not functioning on some workstations due to a missing reporting component.

Blocked Processes

• Added cached collection and interpretation of SQL Server Agent job names.

Notable Query

• Added default Query checksum for binary zero hashes. This will prevent the grouping of queries which are not alike such as ROW FETCH operations.
• Added advanced option [Use Actuals when Deltas Are Unavailable] which allows for collection of single run notable queries and for the collection and use of queries where a qualifying previous session cannot be used for delta calculation.
• Notable query search grid limit increased from 100 to 1,000.
• Notable query drill-through into individual collections are now grouped by last execution date.
• Added option to view baseline notable queries. These are typically hidden, but can be insightful in cases where notable queries are observed only a few times or when SQL Server is frequently flushing the execution cache.

Notable Query Observations

• Added cached collection and interpretation of SQL Server Agent job names.

Performance Dashboard

• Converted SQL Waits and Wait Categories to average milliseconds per second.

Alerting

• Added additional options to prevent the averaging of small durations of SQL executions and SQL Agent jobs which underexaggerate the duration of workloads. This should cut down on excessive alerts.
• Renamed SQL Server Agent Job “History” alerts to “Activity”.
• Added several new conditions to [SQL Agent Job Activity] alert category which allow for alerting of out of band duration executions.
• Added SQL Object Name (when applicable) to the notable query observation alerts.

Issues

• Resolved issue with installer overwriting ACTIVE flag on alert operator groups.
• Resolved issue removing all members of an alert group.
• Resolved issue with dashboards using the day after the selected day.
• Resolved issue with query workload observations which caused application name, login name and host name to be omitted from collection when the wait type was NULL.
• Resolved issue where index count reported by notable query search was not matched to the index suggestion search.
• Resolved issues with Database Report parameters not passing the ComputerId to reports.

Alerts

• Reworked Alert Field Identifiers so that they are included in real-time emails (in addition to UI).
• Added configurable “Days to Observe Average Utilization for Alerts” to allow for custom alerting threshold.

SQL Notable Queries

• Added “cumulative notable query” collection in addition to “per-execution notable query” collection.
• Added fallback to “original login name” when current login name is unavailable for observed sessions.

SQL Agent Jobs

• Added nightly aggregation of daily, monthly, and yearly agent job history.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issues collecting buffer cache hit ratio for non-default SQL instance names.
• Resolved issues regarding auto-fill of default ports when configuring WPF client.
• Resolved issues regarding auto-fill of default ports when connecting to remote cache.
• Resolved issue with displayed VMWare Memory factorization.
• Resolved erroneous recording of VMWare audit when VMWare client data is unavailable.

SQL Notable Queries

• Added alert conditions to notify when a completed query used n-percent more of a given resource than the 7-day average
• Added collection of Object Name for each notable query plan.
• Added search by Object Name functionality. This is a LIKE operation with both a leading and trailing wildcard.
• Removed Host, Application and Login name from notable query details grid. It is only available on Workload Observation grids.

SQL Notable Queries Workload Observation

• Added new alert category for real-time alerting of currently executing queries.
• Added alert conditions to notify when a currently executing query has used n-percent more of a given resource than the 7-day average.

Misc.

• Added collection of all index meta-data regardless of their usage.
• Added collection of index columns and includes.
• Altered index collection to now mark indexes as deleted when they are removed from monitored systems.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issue which could lead to error messages when creating new alerts.
• Resolved issue where dashboards were sometimes omitting present day information.
• Resolved issue which sometimes lead to needless errors being reported in the Event Log when collecting query observations.

SQL Notable Queries

• Added collection and recording of real-time SQL Server workloads, known as Notable Observations.
• Added drill through into Notable Observations.

Performance Snapshot

• Added descriptions and remediation information to Wait Type chart.
• Added drill through into wait times of Notable Observations.

Auditing

• Implemented nightly aggregation of audit metrics for web dashboards.

Real-time SQL Activity Monitoring

• Added windows Process ID PID.
• Added retro support for SQL Server version 2005.

Misc.

• Updated 3rd party controls.
• Added option to “Scan Now” from the server explorer.
• Computers are now automatically scheduled for collection after they are added.
• Selected server explorer item now stays selected when refreshing.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issue viewing SQL Query from the “SQL Quick View Dashboard”.
• Resolved issue where alerts would not stay triggered on multi-instance SQL Servers.

SQL Notable Queries

• Renamed context menu selection “Performance Details” to “Performance History”.
• Added double-click drill-through to indexes, performance history, and query text.
• Added single click drill-through to indexes, plans and query execution history.
• Added query cost to execution history screen.
• Miscellaneous numeric formatting.
• Added nightly NQID aggregations for future added UI intelligence.

Performance Snapshot Dashboard

• Added wait category to wait type chart.
• Drill through to query details is now context sensitive.
• Added double click drill through to SQL related charts.
• Rearranged charts to more logical positioning.

Real-time Grids/Charts

• Tool-tips are now semi-transparent.
• Added real-time SQL statements to activity grid.
• Added correlation of real-time activity to execution history.
• Added duration to real-time query grids
• Added Session and Context ID to real-time activity grid.
• Multi-threaded activity collection for to prevent delay in collection.

Misc.

• Added “severity” to the scan module event log.
• Added scan module event log viewer.
• Icon additions and modifications.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issue where only whole numbers were being collected for query cost.
• Resolved issue where multi-threaded SPIDS were being consolidated.

Quick View Dashboards

• Added tool-tips to health metrics to assist in identifying the underlying health condition.
• Added default values for empty charts.
• “Dashboard” rebranded as Alert Dashboard.
• “Chart Dashboard” rebranded as Performance Snapshot.

SQL Notable Queries

• Added cross-reference to suggested indexes. Allows for quick discovery of related solutions to discovered bottle necks.
• Added drill-through to suggested indexes from notable query.
• Expanded query-text based searching capabilities.
• Added search by NQUID (Notable Query ID) to notable query search.

SQL Disk Monitoring

• Moved select attributes of disk geometry from the disk-metrics and added it to the disk-performance. This allows for quicker alerting on disk-space conditions and more efficient performance data storage.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issue with disk-space trending values on machines with mirrored arrays.
• Resolved issues with hidden date ranges on scan interval configuration.

Major Changes

• Added real-time monitoring for various types of server activity.
• Added real-time monitoring of SQL running processes.
• Added support for custom SQL Server connection strings for complex SQL Server topologies.

SQL Notable Queries

• Added TopLogicalRead flag to collected notable queries.

SQL Index Monitoring

• Added date/time filters to missing index screen.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved issues with installer not re-mapping dependencies when upgrading.
• Resolved issue with installer not properly creating new users when installing the server for the first time.
• Resolved issue with inability to add the first domain when all users are administrators.
• Resolved reported wait times for non-waiting active processes.
• Resolved AD Audit issue which would sometimes cause multiple accounts to marked as touched in VPS.
• Resolved issue which disallowed hyphenated VPS user names.
• Resolved issue with viewing scan-interval frequencies and time windows on audited systems.

Major Changes

• Authentication changed from AD to forms auth. This allows for a more integrated web interface in coming releases and for current compliance web interface.
• All communication has been ported to SSL as opposed to plain HTTP.
• MSMQ is now a required server component, this is in support of real-time monitoring with the next release.

SQL Execution Plans

• Captures execution plan information regarding the level of optimization and the outcome of the optimization phase. For instance, it is now possible to differentiate between queries that have over-complicated execution plans which cause optimization timeouts, trivial queries, and even track execution plan cache hits/misses per query.
• Additional captured plan attributes: Count of batches in the plan, count of statements, plan size, compile time, compile CPU cycles and compile memory.

File Auditing

• Capture and alert on events regarding creation, deletion and modification to file system objects (files).

Schema Auditing

• Capture and alert on events regarding creation, deletion and modification to database schema.

Active Directory Auditing

• Capture an alert on any changes made to AD users and groups.

SQL Security Auditing

• Capture and alert on events regarding creation, deletion and modification to of database users and any change in permissions on any level.

Alerting

• Added right-click copy functionality to quickly reproduce an alert.

SQL Server Instance Performance

• Added new metrics to pivot charts and re-organized folders/groups.

• Buffer Manager

• Background writer pages/sec

• Checkpoint pages/sec

• Free list stalls/sec

• Lazy writes/sec

• Page lookups/sec

• Page reads/sec

• Page writes/sec

• Readahead pages/sec

• General Statistics

• Connection Reset/sec

• Logins/sec

• Logouts/sec

• Latches

• Latch Waits/sec

• SuperLatch Demotions/sec

• SuperLatch Promotions/sec

• Locks

• Lock Requests/sec

• Lock Timeouts (Timout>0)/sec

• Lock Timeouts/sec

• Lock Waits/sec

• Number of Deadlocks/sec

• SQL Statistics

• Auto Param Attempts/sec

• Batch Requests/sec

• Failed Auto Params/sec

• Forced Parameterizations/sec

• Guided plan executions/sec

• Misguided plan executions/sec

• Safe Auto Params/sec

• SQL Compilations/sec

• SQL Re Compilations/sec

• Unsafe Auto Params/sec

Disk Performance

• Fields added to pivot charts and alerting.
  • Seconds per read, seconds per write, and seconds per Transfer (read + writes).
  • Percent utilized time (total), utilized for reads and utilized for writes.
  • Split IO per second (indicates large IO operations and fragmentation).

Windows Process Monitoring

• Processes can now be tagged for unconditional collection
• Not yet implemented by the GUI.

VMWare Host Monitoring

• VMWare host CPU and Memory metrics are now automatically collected.

Additional Reports

• SQL Server Daily I/O Latency
• Current Memory Utilization by Server
• System Downtime
• SQL Server User Modifications
• Active Directory Account State
• Active Directory Account History
• SQL Server Database File Latency by Server
• SQL Server Database Data File Size by Server
• Disk Space Size by Server
• Disk Space Used by Server
• Disk Space Free by Server
• SQL Server Database Average Daily IOPS by Server
• SQL Server Hourly Page Life Expectancy

GUI Changes

• Alert grid on computer overview now contains the last occurrence date of the alert.
• Additional disk performance metrics on Disk Performance pivot chart.
• Ability to filter notable queries on their duration.
• Notable query grids now display the average metrics per execution.
• Added additional dashboards for SQL, Disk, Virtuals, Health and Capacity.

Misc. Changes

• Moved SQL backup auditing out into its own scan interval so that it can be scheduled independently. This is to resolve frequent collection times for customers who retain large backup histories.
• Implemented cache invalidation so that computer, alert, user, etc. changes take effect immediately.
• Added “ignore query” functionality. Still absent from GUI.
• Removed “Buffer Node” SQL metrics as they were not being properly supported by the VPS engine.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved bug which formatted dashboard values multiple times thereby converting TB to GB.