Real-time Performance Monitoring for SQL Server and Dynamics AX Nigel Murdoch, Edgewater/Fullscope

OVERVIEW OF SESSION OBJECTIVE APPROACH ANALYZE Provide visibility into Dynamics AX activity APPROACH Extract Dynamics AX-centric workloads ANALYZE Categorize results by source and purpose to identify hotspots

OBJECTIVE Provide visibility into Dynamics AX activity

IDENTIFY TYPES OF ACTIVITY USER SESSIONS Active Sessions by AOS Active Sessions by Originator (Server, User, etc.) Active Sessions by Client Type BATCH PROCESSING Workload by Time of Day Workload Distribution by AOS Workload by Job Execution Count and Duration SQL QUERIES Long running queries with table usage and stack trace Errors and Warnings about SQL exceptions

IDENTIFY SOURCE OF ACTIVITY – USER SESSIONS

IDENTIFY SOURCE OF ACTIVITY – BATCH HISTORY

IDENTIFY SOURCE OF ACTIVITY – SQL TRACE LOGS

COLLECT WORKLOAD Extract Dynamics AX-centric workloads

GETTING THINGS SETUP COLLECTION SESSION ID Create AX Admin Database Create SQL Agent Job to collect volatile session data SESSION ID Turn On Context HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Dynamics Server\6.0\01\Original (installed configuration) connectioncontext = 1 Enable SQL Trace Logging for Dynamics Ax Users SQL Stored Procedure

AX ADMIN DATABASE CREATE TABLES CREATE SYNONYMS CREATE SQL VIEWS Active User Sessions Log Time Dimension with Hours CREATE SYNONYMS Used to simplify deployment Update with target environment CREATE SQL VIEWS Provide access to live data CREATE AGENT JOBS Schedule data collection

SOURCE DATA TABLES USER SESSIONS BATCH PROCESSING SQL TRACE LOGS SYSSERVERSESSIONS SYSCLIENTSESSIONS BATCH PROCESSING BATCHJOB BATCHJOBHISTORY SQL TRACE LOGS SYSTRACETABLESQL

ANALYZE Categorize results by source and purpose to identify hotspots

EXCEL DASHBOARD POWER QUERY POWER PIVOT PIVOT CHARTS Connect Excel to the AX Admin Database POWER PIVOT Create Relationships between the data and the Time Dimension Create Hierarchies for analysis PIVOT CHARTS Develop Dashboard to visualize activity

EXCEL DASHBOARD

EXCEL DASHBOARD – POWER QUERY Connect Excel to the AX Admin Database

EXCEL DASHBOARD – POWER PIVOT Create Relationships and Hierarchies

EXCEL DASHBOARD – PIVOT CHARTS Create Visualizations and Dashboard Client Session Count by Time of Day Session Count by Client Type Batch Processing by Job Count Batch Processing by Job Duration Top Queries by Query Time

WHAT’S NEXT In upcoming BI sessions I will demonstrate how to turn this solution into a custom OLAP Cube and surface the output as an Admin Role Center using Power View Webparts Identify other Administrative Data to include on the Dashboard like AIF Exception Logs

Final reminders CPE Credit Code: 53C2 Complete Surveys

Speaker contact info Nigel Murdoch MCSE, MCSA, MCDBA, MCITP – Business Intelligence Edgewater/Fullscope LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelmurdoch Email: nigel.murdoch@fullscope.com FOCUS2016@Fullscope.com