monitor a specific MS SQL database - available

[cevyn]

This is a experience based question.

As yoda would say "seeking wisdom I am".
I need to monitor a specific Microsoft SQL database to ensure it is available.

Considered a number of event based items from template associated with SQL server - transactions /sec or avtive transactions for example.

But wondering if "extending Zabbix Agent" in manual section 9.1 is a better way to go to perform an actual query against the database. Any thoughts or suggestions?

If you have a good example or and above example in the book
that someone uses that would be awesome.

[troffasky]

I need to monitor a specific Microsoft SQL database to ensure it is available.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

PHP [and Perl for that matter] both have a large number of database connectivity backends, so it would be straightforward enough to write a script that queries your database, and then spits out either 'aye' or 'nay' depending on what happens. You could get it to tell you the response time as well, and have a second trigger for when response times get above a certain level. Nothing like showing The Boss you're being proactive, is there? ;-)

[Calimero]

A piece of VBScript would probably do the job too, without requiring Perl or PHP which may be considered 'exotic' on MS Windows systems.