Use the AlwaysOn Dashboard (SQL Server Management Studio)

Prerequisites

Security

1. In Object Explorer, connect to the instance of SQL Server on which you want to run the AlwaysOn Dashboard.

2. Expand the AlwaysOn High Availability node, right-click the Availability Groups node, and then click Show Dashboard.

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To Change AlwaysOn Dashboard Options

The availability group screen displays a summary line for each availability group for which the connected server instance hosts a replica. This pane displays the following columns.

Availability Group Name

The name of an availability group for which the connected server instance hosts a replica.

Primary Instance

Name of the server instance that is hosting the primary replica of the availability group.

Failover Mode

Displays the failover mode for which the replica is configured. The possible failover mode values are:

• Automatic. Indicates that one or more replicas is in automatic-failover mode.

• Manual. Indicates that no replica is automatic-failover mode.

Issues

Click the Issues link to open troubleshooting documentation for a given issue. For a list of all the AlwaysOn policy issues, see AlwaysOn Policies for Operational Issues with AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server).

Tip
Click the column headings to sort the availability group information by the name of the availability group, primary instance, failover mode, or Issue.

The following detail information is displayed for the availability group that you select from the summary screen:

Availability group state

Displays the state of health for the availability group.

Primary instance

Name of the server instance that is hosting the primary replica of the availability group.

Failover mode

Displays the failover mode for which the replica is configured. The possible failover mode values are:

• Automatic. Indicates that one or more replicas is in automatic-failover mode.

• Manual. Indicates that no replica is automatic-failover mode.

Cluster state

Name and state of the cluster where the instance of the connected server and the availability group is a member node.

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The Availability replica pane displays the following columns:

Name

The name of the server instance that hosts the availability replica. This column is shown by default.

Role

Indicates the current role of the availability replica, either Primary or Secondary. For information about AlwaysOn Availability Groups roles, see Overview of AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server). This column is shown by default.

Failover Mode

Displays the failover mode for which the replica is configured. The possible failover mode values are:

• Automatic. Indicates that one or more replicas is in automatic-failover mode.

• Manual. Indicates that no replica is automatic-failover mode.

Synchronization State

Indicates whether a secondary replica is currently synchronized with primary replica. This column is shown by default. The possible values are:

• Not Synchronized. One or more databases in the replica are not synchronized or have not yet been joined to the availability group.

• Synchronizing. One or more databases in the replica are being synchronized.

• Synchronized. All databases in the secondary replica are synchronized with the corresponding primary databases on the current primary replica, if any, or on the last primary replica.

  Note
  In performance mode, the database is never in the synchronized state.

• NULL. Unknown state. This value occurs when the local server instance cannot communicate with the WSFC failover cluster (that is the local node is not part of WSFC quorum).

Issues

Lists the issue name. This value is shown by default. For a list of all the AlwaysOn policy issues, see AlwaysOn Policies for Operational Issues with AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server).

Availability Mode

Indicates the replica property that that you set separately for each availability replica. This value is hidden by default. The possible values are:

• Asynchronous. The secondary replica never becomes synchronized with the primary replica.

• Synchronous. When catching up to the primary database, a secondary database enters this state, and it remains caught up as long as data synchronization continues for the database.

Primary Connection Mode

Indicates the mode that is used to connect to the primary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Secondary Connection Mode

Indicates the mode that is used to connect to the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Connection State

Indicates whether a secondary replica is currently connected to the primary replica. This column is hidden by default. The possible values are:

• Disconnected. For a remote availability replica, indicates that it is disconnected from the local availability replica. The response of the local replica to the Disconnected state depends on its role, as follows:

  • On the primary replica, if a secondary replica is disconnected, the secondary databases are marked as Not Synchronized on the primary replica, and the primary replica waits for the secondary to reconnect.

  • On the secondary replica, upon detecting that it is disconnected, the secondary replica attempts to reconnect to the primary replica.

• Connected. A remote availability replica that is currently connected to the local replica.

Operational State

Indicates the current operational state of the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default. The possible values are:

0. Pending failover

1. Pending

2. Online

3. Offline

4. Failed

5. Failed, no quorum

NULL. Replica is not local

Last Connection Error No.

Number of the last connection error. This value is hidden by default.

Last Connection Error Description

Description of the last connection error. This value is hidden by default.

Last Connection Error Timestamp

Timestamp of the last connection error. This value is hidden by default.

Note
For information about performance counters for availability replicas, see SQL Server, Availability Replica.

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To group the information, click Group by, and select one of the following:

• Availability replicas

• Availability databases

• Synchronization state

• Failover readiness

• Issues

The pane that displays the grouped information displays the following columns:

Name

The name of the availability database. This value is shown by default.

Replica

The name of the instance of SQL Server that hosts the availability replica. This value is shown by default.

Synchronization State

Indicates whether the availability database is currently synchronized with primary replica. This value is shown by default. The possible synchronization states are:

• Not synchronizing.

  • For the primary role, indicates that the database is not ready to synchronize its transaction log with the corresponding secondary databases.

  • For a secondary database, indicates that the database has not started log synchronization because of a connection issue, is being suspended, or is going through transition states during startup or a role switch.

• Synchronizing.

  On a primary replica:

  • For a primary database, indicates that this database is ready to accept a scan request from a secondary database.

  • On a secondary replica, indicates that there is active data movement going on for that secondary database.

  On a secondary replica, indicates that there is active data movement going on for that replica.

• Synchronized.

  For a primary database, indicates that at least one secondary database is synchronized.

  For a secondary database, indicates that the database is synchronized with the corresponding primary database.

• Reverting.

  Indicates the phase in the undo process when a secondary database is actively getting pages from the primary database.

  Caution
  When a database is in the REVERTING state, forcing failover to the secondary replica can leave that database in a state in which it cannot be started.

• Initializing.

  Indicates the phase of undo when the transaction log required for a secondary database to catch up to the undo LSN is being shipped and hardened on a secondary replica.

  Caution
  When a database is in the INITIALIZING state, forcing failover to the secondary replica will always leave that database in a state in which it cannot be started.

Failover Readiness

Indicates which availability replica can be failed over with or without potential data loss. This column is shown by default. The possible values are:

• Data Loss

• No Data Loss

Issues

Lists the issue name. This column is shown by default. The possible values are:

• Warnings. Click to display the thresholds and warnings issues.

• Critical. Click to display the critical issues.

For a list of all the AlwaysOn policy issues, see AlwaysOn Policies for Operational Issues with AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server).

Suspended

Indicates whether the database is Suspended or has been Resumed. This value is hidden by default.

Suspend Reason

Indicates the reason for the suspended state. This value is hidden by default.

Estimate Data Loss (seconds)

Indicates the time difference of the last transaction log record in the primary replica and secondary replica. If the primary replica fails, all transaction log records within the time window will be lost. This value is hidden by default.

Estimated Recovery Time (seconds)

Indicates the time in seconds it takes to redo the catch-up time. The catch-up time is the time it will take for the secondary replica to catch up with the primary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Synchronization Performance (seconds)

Indicates the time in seconds it takes to synchronize between the primary and secondary replicas. This value is hidden by default.

Log Send Queue Size (KB)

Indicates the amount of log records in the log files of the primary database that have not been sent to the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Log Send Rate (KB/sec)

Indicates the rate in KB per second at which log records are being sent to the secondary replica This value is hidden by default.

Redo Queue Size (KB)

Indicates the amount of log records in the log files of the secondary replica that have not yet been redone. This value is hidden by default.

Redo Rate (KB/sec)

Indicates the rate in KB per second at which the log records are being redone. This value is hidden by default.

FileStream Send Rate (KB/sec)

Indicates the rate of the FileStream in KB per second at which transactions are being sent to the replica. This value is hidden by default.

End of Log LSN

Indicates the actual log sequence number (LSN) that corresponds to the last log record in the log cache on the primary and secondary replicas. This value is hidden by default.

Recovery LSN

Indicates the end of the transaction log before the replica writes any new log records after recovery or failover on the primary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Truncation LSN

Indicates the minimum log truncation value for the primary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Commit LSN

Indicates the actual LSN corresponding to the last commit record in the transaction log. This value is hidden by default.

Last Commit Time

Indicates the time corresponding to the last commit record. This value is hidden by default.

Last Sent LSN

Indicates the point up to which all log blocks have been sent by the primary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Sent Time

Indicates the time when the last log block was sent. This value is hidden by default.

Last Received LSN

Indicates the point up to which all log blocks have been received by the secondary replica that hosts the secondary database. This value is hidden by default.

Last Received Time

Indicates the time when the log block identifier in last message received was read on the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Hardened LSN

Indicates the point up to which all log records have been flushed to disk on the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Hardened Time

Indicates the time when the log-block identifier was received for the last hardened LSN on the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Redone LSN

Indicates the actual LSN of the log record that was redone last on the secondary replica. This value is hidden by default.

Last Redone Time

Indicates the time when the last log record was redone on the secondary database. This value is hidden by default.

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• Use AlwaysOn Policies to View the Health of an Availability Group (SQL Server)

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Reference

Concepts