Create a read-only login to connect to your server and grant the required Azure SQL Roles:

CREATE LOGIN datadog WITH PASSWORD = '<PASSWORD>';
CREATE USER datadog FOR LOGIN datadog;
ALTER SERVER ROLE ##MS_ServerStateReader## ADD MEMBER datadog;
ALTER SERVER ROLE ##MS_DefinitionReader## ADD MEMBER datadog;
-- If not using either of Log Shipping Monitoring (available in Agent v7.50+) or
-- SQL Server Agent Monitoring (available in Agent v7.57+), comment out the next three lines:
USE msdb;
CREATE USER datadog FOR LOGIN datadog;
GRANT SELECT to datadog;

Grant the Agent access to each additional Azure SQL Database on this server:

CREATE USER datadog FOR LOGIN datadog;

Note: Microsoft Entra ID managed identity authentication is also supported. Please see the guide on how to configure this for your Azure SQL DB instance.

When configuring the Datadog Agent, specify one check instance for each application database located on a given Azure SQL DB server. Do not include master and other system databases. The Datadog Agent must connect directly to each application database in Azure SQL DB because each database is running in an isolated compute environment. This also means that database_autodiscovery does not work for Azure SQL DB, so it should not be enabled.

Note: Azure SQL Database deploys a database in an isolated network; each database is treated as a single host. This means that if you run Azure SQL Database in an elastic pool, each database in the pool is treated as a separate host.

init_config:
instances:
  - host: '<SERVER_NAME>.database.windows.net,1433'
    database: '<DATABASE_1>'
    username: datadog
    password: '<PASSWORD>'
    # After adding your project and instance, configure the Datadog Azure integration to pull additional cloud data such as CPU, Memory, etc.
    azure:
      deployment_type: 'sql_database'
      fully_qualified_domain_name: '<SERVER_NAME>.database.windows.net'

  - host: '<SERVER_NAME>.database.windows.net,1433'
    database: '<DATABASE_2>'
    username: datadog
    password: '<PASSWORD>'
    # After adding your project and instance, configure the Datadog Azure integration to pull additional cloud data such as CPU, Memory, etc.
    azure:
      deployment_type: 'sql_database'
      fully_qualified_domain_name: '<SERVER_NAME>.database.windows.net'

See Install the Agent for more detailed instructions on how to install and configure the Datadog Agent.

Create a read-only login to connect to your server and grant the required permissions:

For SQL Server versions 2014+

CREATE LOGIN datadog WITH PASSWORD = '<PASSWORD>';
CREATE USER datadog FOR LOGIN datadog;
GRANT CONNECT ANY DATABASE to datadog;
GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE to datadog;
GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION to datadog;
-- If not using either of Log Shipping Monitoring (available in Agent v7.50+) or
-- SQL Server Agent Monitoring (available in Agent v7.57+), comment out the next three lines:
USE msdb;
CREATE USER datadog FOR LOGIN datadog;
GRANT SELECT to datadog;

Note: Azure managed identity authentication is also supported. Please see the guide on how to configure this for your Azure SQL DB instance.

For SQL Server on Windows Azure VM follow the Setting Up Database Monitoring for self-hosted SQL Server documentation to install the Datadog Agent directly on the Windows Server host VM.

To start collecting SQL Server telemetry, first install the Datadog Agent.

Create the SQL Server Agent conf file C:\ProgramData\Datadog\conf.d\sqlserver.d\conf.yaml. See the sample conf file for all available configuration options.

init_config:
instances:
  - dbm: true
    host: '<HOSTNAME>,<SQL_PORT>'
    username: datadog
    password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
    connector: adodbapi
    adoprovider: MSOLEDBSQL
    tags:  # Optional
      - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
      - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'
    # After adding your project and instance, configure the Datadog Azure integration to pull additional cloud data such as CPU, Memory, etc.
    azure:
      deployment_type: '<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>'
      fully_qualified_domain_name: '<AZURE_INSTANCE_ENDPOINT>'

See the SQL Server integration spec for additional information on setting deployment_type and name fields.

To use Windows Authentication, set connection_string: "Trusted_Connection=yes" and omit the username and password fields.

Use the service and env tags to link your database telemetry to other telemetry through a common tagging scheme. See Unified Service Tagging on how these tags are used throughout Datadog.

Supported Drivers

Microsoft ADO

The recommended ADO provider is Microsoft OLE DB Driver. Ensure the driver is installed on the host where the agent is running.

connector: adodbapi
adoprovider: MSOLEDBSQL19  # Replace with MSOLEDBSQL for versions 18 and lower

The other two providers, SQLOLEDB and SQLNCLI, are considered deprecated by Microsoft and should no longer be used.

ODBC

The recommended ODBC driver is Microsoft ODBC Driver. Starting with Agent 7.51, ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server is included in the agent for Linux. For Windows, ensure the driver is installed on the host where the Agent is running.

connector: odbc
driver: '{ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server}'

Once all Agent configuration is complete, restart the Datadog Agent.

Validate

Run the Agent’s status subcommand and look for sqlserver under the Checks section. Navigate to the Databases page in Datadog to get started.

To start collecting SQL Server telemetry, first install the Datadog Agent.

On Linux, the Datadog Agent additionally requires an ODBC SQL Server driver to be installed—for example, the Microsoft ODBC driver. Once an ODBC SQL Server is installed, copy the odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini files into the /opt/datadog-agent/embedded/etc folder.

Use the odbc connector and specify the proper driver as indicated in the odbcinst.ini file.

Create the SQL Server Agent conf file /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/sqlserver.d/conf.yaml. See the sample conf file for all available configuration options.

init_config:
instances:
  - dbm: true
    host: '<HOSTNAME>,<SQL_PORT>'
    username: datadog
    password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
    connector: odbc
    driver: '<Driver from the `odbcinst.ini` file>'
    tags:  # Optional
      - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
      - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'
    # After adding your project and instance, configure the Datadog Azure integration to pull additional cloud data such as CPU, Memory, etc.
    azure:
      deployment_type: '<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>'
      fully_qualified_domain_name: '<AZURE_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS>'

See the SQL Server integration spec for additional information on setting deployment_type and name fields.

Use the service and env tags to link your database telemetry to other telemetry through a common tagging scheme. See Unified Service Tagging on how these tags are used throughout Datadog.

Once all Agent configuration is complete, restart the Datadog Agent.

Validate

Run the Agent’s status subcommand and look for sqlserver under the Checks section. Navigate to the Databases page in Datadog to get started.

To configure the Database Monitoring Agent running in a Docker container, set the Autodiscovery Integration Templates as Docker labels on your Agent container.

Note: The Agent must have read permission on the Docker socket for Autodiscovery of labels to work.

Replace the values to match your account and environment. See the sample conf file for all available configuration options.

export DD_API_KEY=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
export DD_AGENT_VERSION=7.51.0

docker run -e "DD_API_KEY=${DD_API_KEY}" \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  -l com.datadoghq.ad.check_names='["sqlserver"]' \
  -l com.datadoghq.ad.init_configs='[{}]' \
  -l com.datadoghq.ad.instances='[{
    "dbm": true,
    "host": "<HOSTNAME>,<SQL_PORT>",
    "connector": "odbc",
    "driver": "ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server",
    "username": "datadog",
    "password": "<PASSWORD>",
    "tags": [
      "service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>"
      "env:<CUSTOM_ENV>"
    ],
    "azure": {
      "deployment_type": "<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>",
      "name": "<AZURE_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS>"
    }
  }]' \
  gcr.io/datadoghq/agent:${DD_AGENT_VERSION}

See the SQL Server integration spec for additional information on setting deployment_type and name fields.

Use the service and env tags to link your database telemetry to other telemetry through a common tagging scheme. See Unified Service Tagging on how these tags are used throughout Datadog.

Validate

Run the Agent’s status subcommand and look for sqlserver under the Checks section. Alternatively, navigate to the Databases page in Datadog to get started.

If you have a Kubernetes cluster, use the Datadog Cluster Agent for Database Monitoring.

If cluster checks are not already enabled in your Kubernetes cluster, follow the instructions to enable cluster checks. You can configure the Cluster Agent either with static files mounted in the Cluster Agent container, or by using Kubernetes service annotations:

Helm

Complete the following steps to install the Datadog Cluster Agent on your Kubernetes cluster. Replace the values to match your account and environment.

1. Complete the Datadog Agent installation instructions for Helm.

2. Update your YAML configuration file (datadog-values.yaml in the Cluster Agent installation instructions) to include the following:

   clusterAgent:
     confd:
       sqlserver.yaml: |-
         cluster_check: true
         init_config:
         instances:
         - dbm: true
           host: <HOSTNAME>,1433
           username: datadog
           password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
           connector: 'odbc'
           driver: '{ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server}'
           include_ao_metrics: true  # Optional: For AlwaysOn users
           tags:  # Optional
             - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
             - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'
           azure:
             deployment_type: '<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>'
             fully_qualified_domain_name: '<AZURE_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS>'      
   
   clusterChecksRunner:
     enabled: true
   

3. Deploy the Agent with the above configuration file from the command line:

   helm install datadog-agent -f datadog-values.yaml datadog/datadog
   

Configure with mounted files

To configure a cluster check with a mounted configuration file, mount the configuration file in the Cluster Agent container on the path: /conf.d/sqlserver.yaml:

cluster_check: true  # Make sure to include this flag
init_config:
instances:
  - dbm: true
    host: '<HOSTNAME>,<SQL_PORT>'
    username: datadog
    password: 'ENC[datadog_user_database_password]'
    connector: "odbc"
    driver: '{ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server}'
    tags:  # Optional
      - 'service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>'
      - 'env:<CUSTOM_ENV>'
    # After adding your project and instance, configure the Datadog Azure integration to pull additional cloud data such as CPU, Memory, etc.
    azure:
      deployment_type: '<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>'
      fully_qualified_domain_name: '<AZURE_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS>'

Configure with Kubernetes service annotations

Rather than mounting a file, you can declare the instance configuration as a Kubernetes Service. To configure this check for an Agent running on Kubernetes, create a Service in the same namespace as the Datadog Cluster Agent:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: sqlserver-datadog-check-instances
  annotations:
    ad.datadoghq.com/service.check_names: '["sqlserver"]'
    ad.datadoghq.com/service.init_configs: '[{}]'
    ad.datadoghq.com/service.instances: |
      [
        {
          "dbm": true,
          "host": "<HOSTNAME>,<SQL_PORT>",
          "username": "datadog",
          "password": "ENC[datadog_user_database_password]",
          "connector": "odbc",
          "driver": "ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server",
          "tags": ["service:<CUSTOM_SERVICE>", "env:<CUSTOM_ENV>"],  # Optional
          "azure": {
            "deployment_type": "<DEPLOYMENT_TYPE>",
            "fully_qualified_domain_name": "<AZURE_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS>"
          }
        }
      ]      
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 1433
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 1433
    name: sqlserver

See the SQL Server integration spec for additional information on setting deployment_type and name fields.

The Cluster Agent automatically registers this configuration and begins running the SQL Server check.

To avoid exposing the datadog user’s password in plain text, use the Agent’s secret management package and declare the password using the ENC[] syntax.