Monitoring overview

Applies to: SQL Server Analysis Services Azure Analysis Services Fabric/Power BI Premium

Analysis Services has several different tools to help you monitor and tune the performance of your servers. The choice of tool depends on the type of monitoring or tuning to be done and the particular events to be monitored.

Monitoring tools

Tool Description
Azure Metrics Explorer A free tool in the Azure portal to help you monitor the performance and health of your Azure Analysis Services servers.
Azure Diagnostics Use Azure diagnostic logs to monitor and log Azure Analysis Services server performance. You can send logs to Azure Storage, stream them to Azure Event Hubs, and export them to Azure Monitor logs.
SQL Server Profiler Tracks engine process events. It also captures data about those events, enabling you to monitor server and database activity.
Extended Events A light-weight tracing and performance monitoring system that uses very few system resources, making it an ideal tool for diagnosing problems on both production and test servers.
Trace Events Follow the activity of an instance by capturing and then analyzing the trace events generated by the instance. Trace events are grouped so that you can more easily find related trace events.
Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) Queries that return information about model objects, server operations, and server health. The query, based on SQL, is an interface to schema rowsets.
Performance counters* Using Performance Monitor, you can monitor the performance of an Analysis Services instance by using performance counters.
Log operations* An Analysis Services instance will log server notifications, errors, and warnings to the msmdsrv.log file - one for each instance you install.

* Applies to SQL Server Analysis Services only.

For more detailed information about monitoring SQL Server Analysis Services, see the SQL Server 2008 R2 Operations Guide. While quite old, the Operations Guide is still relevant for later versions.

See also

Monitor Azure Analysis Services server metrics
Setup diagnostic logging for Azure Analysis Services