Interesting SQL Server Metric - Installation Date

Hello,

Do you collect metrics about your SQL Server environment? Wait, you don't? Here are some metrics you should collect.

• How many SQL Servers are installed?
• How many SQL Servers are installed?
• How many SQL Servers are used as production
• How many SQL Servers are used as development?
• How many SQL Servers are used as QA and UAT?
• How many SQL Servers are used as disaster recovery?
• How many SQL Servers are at your location, cloud, other sites, etc.?
• What applications are using each SQL Server(s)?
• How many database do you have?
• How big are the databases and total size of disk use?

Why collect metrics? Well there are many reasons, some are to help manage the SQL Servers and other are to show management what is happening. With management in mind, you should collect the date that SQL Server was installed. With installation date you can show many interesting facts to management.

Here is a list of just what you can show to management.

- How many SQL Servers you have
- How many are where installed each month, quarter and/or year
- How many SQL servers need to be upgrade (if you also collect versions/patch levels)
- What is the growth rate over any period

You can start to see that there is metrics here that management would love to see.

Below is a script that will show the server name, version and installation date.

SELECT @@SERVERNAME as 'SQL Server Name'
      , @@VERSION as 'SQL Server Version'
      , createdate as 'Date Installed' FROM sys.syslogins
WHERE [name] = 'NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM' AND [dbname] = 'master';

Hope you find this script useful and have a happy holiday and a Happy New Year.

Rudy