Generic Database Monitoring Tool

Question

Hi ...

It seems like something like this should exist, but I have never heard of it and would find such a utility to be incredibly useful. Many times, I develop applications that have a database backed - SQL Server or Oracle. During development, end users of the app are encouraged to test the site - I can verify this by looking for entries in the database ... if there are entries, they have been testing ... if not, they haven't.

What I would like is a tool/utility that would do this checking for me. I would specify the Database and connection parameters and the tool would pool the database periodically (based on values that I specify) and alert me if there was any new activity in the database (perhaps it would pop up a notification in the system tray). I could also specify multiple database scenarios to monitor in the tool. If such an app existed, I wouldn't have to manually run queries against databases for new activity. I'm aware of SQL Profiler, but when I reviewed it, it seemed like overkill for what I wanted to do (and it also wouldn't do the Oracle DB monitoring). Also, to use SQL Profiler, you have to be an admin of the database. I would need to monitor databases where I only have a read-only account.

Does someone know if such a tool exists?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Sounds like something really easy to write yourself. Just query the database schema, then do a select count(*) or select max(lastUpdateTime) query on each table and save the result. If something is different send yourself an email. JDBC in Java gives you access to the schema information in a cross-database manner. Don't know about ADO.