views:

637

answers:

5

I'd like if its possible to work out from inside sql server how long sql server has been running.

Would like to use this in conjunction with one of the DMV's for unused indexes, but the couters are re-set every time sql server loads, so I'd like to know how useful they're going to be.

A: 

Grabbed here

USE Master
GO

SET NOCOUNT ON
DECLARE @crdate DATETIME, @hr VARCHAR(50), @min VARCHAR(5)
SELECT @crdate=crdate FROM sysdatabases WHERE NAME='tempdb'
SELECT @hr=(DATEDIFF ( mi, @crdate,GETDATE()))/60
IF ((DATEDIFF ( mi, @crdate,GETDATE()))/60)=0
SELECT @min=(DATEDIFF ( mi, @crdate,GETDATE()))
ELSE
SELECT @min=(DATEDIFF ( mi, @crdate,GETDATE()))-((DATEDIFF( mi, @crdate,GETDATE()))/60)*60
PRINT 'SQL Server "' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),SERVERPROPERTY('SERVERNAME'))+'" is Online for the past '+@hr+' hours & '+@min+' minutes'
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM master.dbo.sysprocesses WHERE program_name = N'SQLAgent - Generic Refresher')
BEGIN
PRINT 'SQL Server is running but SQL Server Agent <<NOT>> running'
END
ELSE BEGIN
PRINT 'SQL Server and SQL Server Agent both are running'
END
Lieven
A: 

found this article that gets the login time from SPID 1, which is the system connection SPID:

http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/38042/sql_server_38042.html

Lazy Bob
+4  A: 
SELECT
    login_time
FROM
    sys.dm_exec_sessions
WHERE
    session_id = 1

will give you a datetime for when the server was started.

AakashM
i think i like this kludge better then the tempdb kludge. both look like they give the same result!
Nick Kavadias
+1 I second that
Lieven
and I wouldn't even call this a kludge - but a method! ;-)
marc_s
A: 

To get it programmatically, you can run this script. It checks the creation time of your tempdb, since tempdb gets reinitialized every time Sql Server is started.

SELECT create_date 
FROM sys.databases 
WHERE name = 'tempdb'

To make it more intuitive, you can run the script below, which will tell you how many days and hours Sql Server has been running. Minutes and seconds information will be truncated. If you need that, modify the script to get it yourself.

SELECT 'Sql Server Service has been running for about '
+ CAST((DATEDIFF(hh, create_date, GETDATE()))/24 AS varchar(3)) + ' days and '
+ CAST((DATEDIFF(hh, create_date, GETDATE())) % 24 AS varchar(2)) + ' hours'
FROM sys.databases 
WHERE name = 'tempdb'

Source: How long SQL Server has been running

kevchadders
A: 

SELECT crdate FROM sysdatabases WHERE [name] = 'tempdb'

The above will work on SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008.

The logic is that the result from the above SQL returns the created date of the tempdb database, which SQL Server recreates every time it is restarted. Hence, the created date of tempdb is the startup time of the server.

adrianbanks