DBLense SQL Monitor — User Guide

Real-time SQL Server monitoring dashboard. Track active requests, CPU consumers, wait statistics, database sizes, and connection activity — all from a single portable .exe with zero installation.

Getting Started

Double-click DBLenseSQLMonitor.exe — no installation required. A connection dialog appears with four authentication modes:

• Windows Authentication — Domain-joined on-premises servers
• SQL Server Authentication — SQL login/password
• Azure Entra ID — Password — Azure SQL with Entra credentials
• Azure Entra ID — MFA — Azure SQL with multi-factor auth

After connecting, DBLense automatically detects whether the server is on-premises, Azure SQL Database, or Azure SQL Managed Instance, and adjusts its queries accordingly.

Overview Dashboard

The Overview tab provides a high-level snapshot of server health:

• CPU Usage % — Current processor utilization
• Memory Usage — Buffer cache, plan cache, and total consumption
• Active Sessions — Current user sessions and system sessions
• Blocked Processes — Number of processes waiting on locks
• Page Life Expectancy — How long data pages stay in memory
• Batch Requests/sec — Server throughput indicator

All metrics refresh automatically based on your configured interval (default: 10 seconds).

Active Requests

Shows all currently running queries on the server with rich detail:

Blocked sessions are highlighted in red. You can identify blocking chains by following the Blocking SPID references.

Top CPU Queries

Surfaces the queries consuming the most CPU over the monitoring period. Each entry shows:

• Total and average CPU time
• Execution count
• Query text (with Copy button)
• Database name

Use this to identify CPU-heavy queries that could benefit from index optimization or query rewrite.

Wait Statistics

Aggregated wait stats since last server restart, sorted by total wait time:

• Wait Type — Name of the wait category
• Total Wait Time — Cumulative time all sessions spent waiting
• Average Wait Time — Mean wait per occurrence
• Wait Count — How many times this wait occurred
• Signal Wait Time — Time waiting for CPU after resource became available

Common actionable wait types:

Database Sizes

Visual breakdown of every database on the server:

• Data file size and used space
• Log file size and used space
• Growth settings (auto-grow configuration)
• Recovery model

Connection Monitoring

Track connection distribution across your server:

• Connections grouped by application, host, or login
• Active vs. sleeping session breakdown
• Connection pool monitoring

60-Second History

A rolling 60-second chart showing real-time trends:

• CPU usage over time
• Batch requests per second
• Active sessions count

This helps identify bursts and correlate performance dips with specific time windows.

Auto-Refresh Settings

Configure the monitoring refresh interval:

• 5 seconds — Real-time incident investigation
• 10 seconds — Default monitoring
• 30 seconds — Low-overhead background monitoring
• Manual — Refresh only when clicked

Azure Auto-Detection

DBLense SQL Monitor automatically detects Azure environments and adapts:

• Azure SQL Database — Uses Azure-specific DMVs
• Azure SQL Managed Instance — Full monitoring with MI-compatible queries
• Server-level metrics that don't apply to Azure are automatically hidden

System Requirements