Event Chains: Create SQL Server Event Workflows

What are SolarWinds SQL Sentry Event Chains?

The SQL Sentry Event Chains feature helps you set up SQL Server event workflows so that SQL Server jobs, Windows scheduled tasks, and other events execute automatically and in a specific order to avoid potential conflicts.

You'll find this feature in:

SQL Sentry

 

Juggling multiple SQL Server jobs and Windows scheduled tasks can be challenging

Even for data pros who have mastered managing SQL Server jobs or Windows scheduled tasks, handling events across both environments can be difficult and time-consuming.

With Microsoft SQL Server Agent jobs, you can automate routine administrative tasks, including running Transact-SQL scripts, command-line applications, SSIS packages, SSAS commands, and queries, or replication tasks.

Identifying potential conflicts in scheduled events is difficult. especially in complex environments. For example, you might have a specific job or task that needs to run to correct a failure. Or you might need to ensure that backup jobs don’t run concurrently.

When you add Windows scheduled tasks to the scenario, your job becomes even more difficult.

You need the ability to efficiently manage events across the SQL Server and Windows environments so that even the most complex event chains execute successfully.

This is where SQL Sentry comes in: our monitoring products simplify managing multiple SQL Server and Windows events, even in the most complex environments.

 

 

Efficiently manage SQL Server and Windows events in complex environments

 

Event Chains in the SQL Sentry Event Calendar helps you create workflows containing SQL Server agent jobs or Windows scheduled tasks from any server that you’re currently monitoring.

Each event chain is a series of dependencies between events running on the same server or different servers.

There’s no limit to the length of a chain or the number of events it can contain. You can create workflows that continue conditionally based on the success, failure, or completion of the previous step in the workflow.

You only need to schedule the first node of the event chain, and the following steps will be kicked off through SQL Sentry. Whether a step takes five minutes or an hour, the next step won't start until the previous one completes.

You have three options for setting up your event chain workflows:

1. Proceed upon completion of the previous node

2. Proceed upon success of the previous node

3. Proceed upon failure of the previous node

These options are especially useful if you have a situation where a specific job or task needs to run to correct a failure on a node before the completion of the chain. They’re also helpful when you want to ensure that jobs such as backup jobs don't run concurrently.

sql-sentry-event-chains

What You Can Do with Event Chains

  • Set up Event Chains within the SQL Sentry Event Calendar so you can see all jobs and tasks in an Outlook-style calendar
  • Schedule both SQL Server Agent jobs and Windows Task Scheduler tasks
  • Define the workflow of events with branches dependent on the completion, success, or failure of the previous event
  • Run individual event nodes on the same or different servers
  • Set workflows with no limit on the length of the chain or the time it takes to execute a single job or task
  • And more

“The unique offering is the graphical chaining of jobs. This is especially important when the job chain spans servers.”

—Derek Knutsen, Database Administrator, American Health Network

 

Read more independent SQL Sentry reviews on TrustRadius.

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