Architecture

Architecture components

The dbWatch installation consists of three components; the dbWatch Monitor which is the front end GUI. The dbWatch Server which is the core business logic and central hub of the system. And the dbWatch Framework where objects are stored in the registered database instances.

dbWatch Monitor

The dbWatch Monitor is the GUI front end for interacting with one or several dbWatch Servers. The Monitor is an installed application.

dbWatch Server

The dbWatch Server is the server program that is responsible for all communication with the configured database instances. It is responsible for triggering the monitoring procedures (if monitoring is enabled), generating reports and performing the actual administration tasks. The dbWatch Server can also communicate with 3rd party products through extensions.

Database Instances

There are 4 dbWatch modules that can be enabled for each database instance, the following briefly describes their impact on the instance;

Monitoring

When you enable monitoring for a particular instance a dbWatch Engine is installed on the instance. The Engine is a set of database objects (Procedures, Tables & Functions) written in the native language related to that instance. This code provides the interface used by the dbWatch Server when triggered by the dbWatch Tasks and Alerts. It is also used by Tasks and Alerts to report back to the dbWatch Server.
All engine codes are open for end users to view and is included with the installation of the dbWatch Server. The dbWatch Server maintains a pool of up to 4 sessions which perform the monitoring of each instance.

Management

The dbWatch Management module consists of a set of specifications that define the management interface your user has for a particular instance. A specification can optionally define a set of “helper” objects on the database instance. This will usually entail a number of tables used for temporary storage and functions that perform codes which are used often. If the selected management specification contains such objects, they are installed on the instance the first time the management interface is used and this then is Management.

Framework

The dbWatch Server has a pool of sessions for each instance that will grow on demand, based on the user commands issued in the Management interface. This will hardly ever grow beyond 1 or 2 sessions and when the user is inactive for a while (30 second default) sessions are terminated.

SQL Worksheet

The dbWatch SQL Worksheet allows you to perform custom SQL statements on any database instance. It has no associated database objects. The dbWatch Server has a pool of sessions for each instance that will grow on demand based on the SQL statements issued in the SQL Worksheet. This will hardly ever grow beyond 1 or 2 sessions. When the user is inactive for a while (30 second default) sessions are terminated.

Reports

The dbWatch Reports allows you to generate reports based on any data on any database instance. It has no associated database objects.
The dbWatch Server will create a session for each (global) report it generates and terminates it afterwards. On a normal system this will result in no more than a handfull of sessions being generated per day.

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