DBLense Activity Monitor — User Guide

Complete user guide for DBLense Activity Monitor: how to navigate every screen, how live DMV sampling and optional Agent collectors work, and how to tune intervals, retention, query sources, alerts, and UI behavior.

Overview

Activity Monitor connects to a SQL Server instance and continuously samples DMVs to present a live view of server health. Optional on-instance collectors keep history and evaluate alerts even when the desktop app is closed. It is designed for DBAs and developers who need fast answers to “what is the server doing right now?” and “which queries drove that spike?”

Live KPI cards and performance charts with configurable auto-refresh (5 / 10 / 30 sec)
Active sessions, requests, blocking chains, and a Show blocking only filter with root-blocker highlights
Wait stats, metrics timelines, memory clerks, storage growth, databases, indexes, Query Store drill-down, and ERRORLOG viewer
Performance tab historic trends from three sources: Plan cache, Individual (XE), and Query Store
Optional on-instance history collectors + threshold alerting (Agent jobs + Database Mail)
Per-instance alert configuration — rules, thresholds, and email settings stored on each SQL Server
Multi-instance Servers home page with health tiles, latest alerts rail, Connection Flow, and UI Health
Automatic database-object upgrades when you connect — no need to unregister instances after app updates

Architecture

The desktop app is the live console. Optional SQL objects on each target instance provide history, query-performance snapshots, alerting, and retention when you deploy monitoring. Activity Monitor is self-contained — it does not depend on DBLense SQL Monitor enterprise repository or XE sessions.

Desktop

Activity Monitor (WPF)

Live DMVs, charts, grids, alerts inbox

↔

SQL Server

DMVs + optional dblense schema

History tables, alert rules, stored procs

←

SQL Agent

Quick / Standard / Alert / Purge jobs

Collectors run even when app is closed

Live path: app → DMVs on each refresh. History path: Agent jobs → dblense.* tables → Performance tab & alert evaluation.

Data paths

Live path — the WPF app queries DMVs on each refresh interval and paints KPI cards, grids, and charts.
History path — SQL Agent jobs snapshot metrics into the dblense schema (Quick ~15 sec, Standard ~5 min).
Query performance path — three collectors feed the Performance tab historic charts and Top Queries grid (see Query Performance History).
Alert path — Agent job DBLense - Alert Evaluation runs usp_evaluate_alerts every minute against history + live checks; results land in dblense.alerts and optionally Database Mail.
Retention — Agent job DBLense - Purge History (default daily ~3 AM) calls usp_purge_history.
UI Health — title-bar health icon probes registered instances for reachability, Agent status, and stale collection while the dashboard is open.

Agent jobs (on-prem / MI with SQL Agent)

Job	Default interval	Collects
DBLense - Quick Collection	15 seconds	Perf metrics, session snapshot, blocking, XE blocking, XE query completed (if enabled)
DBLense - Standard Collection	5 minutes	Plan cache deltas (`usp_collect_query_stats`), Query Store intervals, wait stats
DBLense - Alert Evaluation	1 minute	Threshold rules, Database Mail
DBLense - Purge History	Daily	Retention purge per deploy settings