RSS Reporter

What is RSS Reporter for SQL Server and how does it work?

RSS Reporter for SQL Server is a simple, yet extremely useful, tool that generates standard RSS feeds containing information regarding SQL Server jobs like the current status of the job, job details, historical status; feeds containing information generated by ad-hoc queries as well as feeds that contain database size and space allocation information. The RSS Reported is installed on a server that is running IIS – any user that has credentials to connect to certain SQL Server instances and view job information can create a profile on the RSS Reporter. The profile for each user contains a list of SQL Server instances, the authentication method, necessary credentials for connecting to each instance, and basic configuration settings. RSS Reporter automatically generates a set of predefined RSS feeds that are further described in the feeds section of this help document.

RSS Reporter for SQL Server supports SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

RSS Reporter features and benefits

SQL Server Job RSS feeds

As any SQL Server DBA knows the best and most commonly used way for monitoring the jobs is the SQL Server email notification which has a few inherent issues:

• It is not easy to configure and requires one to constantly keep an eye on it;
• Email notifications may get lost, caught on spam filters, blocked by firewalls or network policies etc. in short they may not reach the intended destination;
• The designated operator may not always have easy access to his mailbox;
• The operator needs to configure notifications/alerts for each job individually and will receive a separate notification for each job.

RSS Reporter for SQL Server addresses all the above pain points and more:

• It is very easy to install and configure and it only needs to be installed in one machine regardless of how many servers you need to monitor
• Predefined feeds are automatically generated, no need to go through lengthy configuration process
• All job information from multiple servers is aggregated in one single feed
• Feeds can be read from any connected device and are always there when you need them – no need to delete or archive
• Feeds can be filtered and sorted making it significantly easier and faster to get the information you need

Ad-hoc query RSS feeds

Have you ever been asked to pull some information out of the database quick and thought "I wish there was a better way to deliver the information to the requester other than cut and paste into an email". Or, do you find yourself running the same query over and over to update your boss with a sales number or something else because you never have enough time to sit down and create a report that he/she can access without having to bug you every day? If those or similar scenarios ring a bell then you have found the solution you have been waiting for – with RSS Reporter all you need to do is write the query, generate the feed and send out the link to the feed. Features include:

• Feed item title – ability to choose a field from the query output to be used as the feed item title
• Feed layout – you can decide on the feed layout by select the number of the output fields to be displayed in each row of the feed item
• Number of items – you can limit the number of the output rows that will included in the feed
• Sorting the feed items - the generated feed can be sorted by any of the output fields.

Database info RSS feeds

RSS Reporter for SQL Server makes monitoring database size and space usage very easy – with a single click you can generate a standard RSS feed contains the following items:

• A summary item for the database itself reporting database size, data file size, log size space allocated etc.
• A feed item for each database data file reporting autogrowth mode and growth factor, file size, space used etc. If your database has, for example, three filegroups and each filegroup has two files, the feed contains six items.
• A feed item for each database log file reporting autogrowth mode, growth factor, file size, space used and space available for the log file.