The History Browser is intended to provide information pertaining to the state of your SQL Server instance at the time a standard snapshot is taken. You can use this information to diagnose and resolve issues to keep the issue from happening again. The History Browser allows you to select a historical snapshot collected by the standard refresh and view the data that was collected using almost all the SQL Diagnostic Manager real-time views.

By default, Session details and inactive alerts are stored for 31 days while standard metric information is stored for 365 days. You can edit these options on the Grooming Options window.

Historical Snapshot drop-down

SQL Diagnostic Manager has a historical snapshot drop-down in the top-right corner, the drop-down allows you to retrieve faster historical and real-time data. The following options are available for the data retrieval:

  • Real-Time
  • Show last 15minutes of data
  • Show last 30 minutes of data
  • Show last hour of data
  • Show last 2 hours of data
  • Show last 4 hours of data
  • Shot last 6 hours of data
  • Show last day of data
  • Show last 5 days of data
  • Enter a Custom Time Range


Select a specific snapshot in time in the History Browser

To select a specific snapshot:

  1. Open the History Browser.
  2. Select the date from the calendar. You can also select the time range to filter the number of snapshots displayed.
  3. Select the corresponding snapshot from the Historical Snapshots list.


The icons next to each of the snapshots represent the highest level of alert thresholds violated. These icons can help you identify a specific snapshot. In addition, you can hover over snapshots in the list to see the most critical alerts associated with the snapshot.

The alert status listed by snapshots in the History Browser may not reflect the latest status due to delays in writing history to the repository. This status corrects eventually in the History Browser.

Alerts with associated views that support historical snapshots

On the Alerts view, some of the alerts allow you to retrieve the associated view at the time the alert was activated. To access this view, right-click the alerts, and click Show Historical View in the Details pane.

The following table displays a list of alerts that provide an associated view in SQL Diagnostic Manager.

Alert

Associated View

Average Disk Milliseconds Per Read

Resources

Average Disk Milliseconds Per Transfer

Resources

Average Disk Milliseconds Per Write

Resources

Blocked Sessions (Count)

Sessions

Blocking Session Wait Time (Seconds)

Sessions

Client Computers (Count)

Sessions

Databases Read/Write Errors Occurred

Databases

Disk Reads Per Second

Resources

Disk Transfers Per Second

Resources

Disk Writes Per Second

Resources

Host CPU Usage (Percent)

Resources

Host Memory Usage (Percent)

Resources

Oldest Open Transactions (Minutes)

Sessions

OS Average Disk Queue Length (Count)

Resources

OS Average Disk Queue Length Per Disk (Count)

Resources

OS Disk Time (Percent)

Resources

OS Disk Time Per Disk (Percent)

Resources

OS Memory Usage (Percent)

Resources

OS Paging (Per Second)

Resources

OS Privileged Time (Percent)

Resources

OS Processor Queue Length (Count)

Resources

OS Processor Time (Percent)

Resources

Page Life Expectancy

Server

Session CPU Time (Seconds)

Sessions

SQL Server CPU Usage (Percent)

Resources

SQL Server Memory Usage (Percent)

Resources

SQL Server Response Time (Milliseconds)

Sessions

Tempdb Contention (ms)

Databases

User Connections (Percent)

Sessions

VM CPU Usage (Percent)

Resources

VM Memory Usage (Percent)

Resources

Views that support historical snapshots

Users may notify you of SQL Server problems that have happened in the past. Using the History Browser, you can go back to a point in time and view the state of your system and also compare system states at different points in time.

The following views support historical snapshots:

  • Overview > Dashboard
  • Overview > Details
  • Overview > Active Alerts
  • Sessions > Summary
  • Sessions > Details
  • Sessions > Locks
  • Sessions > Blocking
  • Queries > Signature Mode
  • Queries > Statement Mode
  • Queries > Query History
  • Queries > Query Waits
  • Resources > Summary
  • Resources > CPU
  • Resources > Memory
  • Resources > Disk
  • Resources > File Activity
  • Resources > Server Waits
  • Databases > Tempdb Summary
  • Databases > Availability Group
  • Analyze > History



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