Diagnose the health of your SQL servers

Microsoft has a utility, the SQL Server Health And History Tool (SQLH2), which enables you to quickly analyze the performance and configuration of your SQL servers. To use this utility, you must first download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.1.4322 or later.

You can download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework by going to www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en.

You're now ready to use SQLH2. First, download SQLH2 by going to www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eedd10d6-75f7-4763-86de-d2347b8b5f89&DisplayLang=en. Then, install SQLH2 by double-clicking on the downloaded file. When the installation completes, it automatically launches the SQLH2 Installation & Configuration Wizard. You use this wizard to create a database for storing the information gathered by SQLH2, configure the agent that gathers your server's health information, and schedule a task to automatically gather information about your server. Click Next on each page of the wizard to accept the default configuration values for SQLH2. When prompted, select the SQL server(s) you want to analyze with SQLH2.

Finally, you view the information gathered by SQLH2 by creating reports within SQL Server Reporting Services. If you don't want to create these reports manually, you can download the reports created by Microsoft specifically for viewing SQLH2 information by going to www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a4b837c7-a1fa-4f25-840b-fef15e917f18&DisplayLang=en.