Preparation:
Ascertain that System Requirements are Met
For purposes of our installation,
we will enter the MSSQL
Server Management Studio,
from which we will discuss the system requirements – in some cases
verifying compliance from inside the Management Studio. Obviously, we
would likely ascertain that we met requirements before even beginning to
install software; we do so in the manner I’ve described simply to both mention
the requirements and to provide a quick means of ascertaining compliance
“enroute to the objective,” such as we might want to perform when we have to
rely upon the assertions of others, assumptions that predecessors have
installed performed prerequisites, etc.
1.
Click the Start
button on the PC.
2.
Select Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 within the Program group of the menu.
3.
Click SQL
Server Management Studio, as depicted in Illustration 13.
Illustration 13: Opening
SQL Server Management Studio
The Connect to Server
dialog appears, after the brief Management Studio splash screen.
4.
Select Database
Engine in the Server type selector.
5.
Type / select
the server name (server name / instance, if appropriate) in the Server name
selector.
6.
Supply
authentication information, as required in your own environment. (I have
selected Windows Authentication in my own environment.)
The Connect to Server
dialog appears similar to that depicted in Illustration 14.
Illustration 14:
Preparing to Connect to the Server ...
7.
Click the Connect
button to connect with the specified SQL Server Database Engine
server.
The SQL Server
Management Studio opens.
We can quickly check our
readiness at this point with at least the most important system requirement
– the requirement that the SQL Server instance being monitored via the Performance
Dashboard Reports must also be running Service Pack 2 or
higher.
The requirement is in
place partially because Performance Dashboard Reports is a
collection of Custom Reports designed to be hosted in SQL Server
Management Studio, and since the Custom Reports feature is new in Service
Pack 2, we must have performed the Service Pack 2 update to be able
to use them. Moreover, a client machine running the reports must be upgraded
to the Service Pack 2 version of the client tools (Management Studio).
Other Service Pack 2
functionality upon which the Performance Dashboard Reports rely includes:
-
sys.dm_exec_text_query_plan;
-
an extension
to the OBJECT_NAME() function to accept an optional dbid parameter;
-
several bug
fixes related to the data reported in the dynamic management views
(DMVs).
The Performance
Dashboard Reports check the SQL Server version and will
return an error if the version requirements are not met. SQL Server 2005
makes it easy to determine, from our present position within SQL Server
Management Studio, whether Service Pack 2 has been installed. The
most obvious indication is in the version number (it should be Version
9.00.3042.01 or greater) that we can see both
in the Server description atop Solution Explorer, and in the Solution
Explorer Details tab to the right of the Solution Explorer pane, as
represented in composite Illustration 15.
Illustration 15: Two
Easily Verified Version Numbers in Management Studio (Composite View)
Its use of the Custom Reports feature that debuts in Service
Pack 2 means that SQL Server Management Studio relies upon the client side
report viewer control to present the Performance Dashboard Reports.
As we have already noted, this means that Reporting Services does
not have to be installed in the environment involved. Other requirements, such
as the specification that the computer running SQL Server 2005 must
use a fixed processor frequency, exist, and can be reviewed in the help
file that accompanies the Performance Dashboard Reports installation.
Once the installation
package has been run, we are ready to run the Setup file that can be
found in the same directory in which we placed the reports. We can then open and
run the primary dashboard report with the new Custom Reports option
within SQL Server Management Studio. We will take these final setup
steps in the section that follows.
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