Platform Connect

Platform Connect for SQL Sentry Portal integrates SQL Sentry Portal with SolarWinds Observability to access SolarWinds Platform Cloud Notification Services. Connect to any configured SolarWinds Platform Notification Service channel such as PagerDuty and ServiceNow with the SQL Sentry's alerting and response system. Configure the desired Conditions with the Send to Alerting Channels action on the SQL Sentry client, and choose the supported integration where you want to send alerts.

Getting started

Before setting up a Platform Connect connection in SQL Sentry Portal, ensure that you have the following prerequisites.

• You have a valid SQL Sentry subscription license, temporary license, or evaluation license. See SQL Sentry License management.

• You have set up SQL Sentry Portal and the Portal Service on your machine. See SQL Sentry Portal configuration and Getting Started with SQL Sentry Portal for setup instructions.

• You have a valid SQL Sentry Portal administrator account.

• You have a SolarWinds Observability account or trial account.

• You have a PagerDuty or ServiceNow account.

• You have connectivity between SQL Sentry Portal and your cloud service provider for communication with SolarWinds Observability.

Known Issues

Please note the following.

• Platform Connect is not supported on machines that have both DPA and SQL Sentry installed.

• If you have an evaluation license for SQL Sentry, a SolarWinds Observability trial account is created for your when you connect to SolarWinds Observability. You can use this trial account for 30 days. If you change your SQL Sentry license from an evaluation license to a temporary or subscription license, you must contact Sales or SolarWinds Support to extend the SolarWinds Observability trial account.

• The SQL Sentry Portal instance used in onboarding should be configured to use a single SQL Sentry database. A SQL Sentry Portal instance pointing to multiple SQL Sentry databases will encounter issues with Platform Connect.

• If you have used Platform Connect on your SQL Sentry installation, you must uninstall the Platform Connect agent before you can uninstall SQL Sentry. In SQL Sentry Portal go to Platform Connect, and then click Uninstall Agent. See Uninstalling SQL Sentry.

Configure Platform Connect on SQL Sentry Portal

1. Open SQL Sentry Portal and click the Platform Connect button . Click Next to continue.

2. Read the License Agreement and if you agree, click the checkbox agreeing to the terms and conditions. Click Next to continue.

3. Create an API token in SolarWinds Observability.

   1. Log in to your SolarWinds Observability account, or select Click here and create a trial account.

   2. Go to Settings > API Tokens.

   3. Click Create API Token.

   4. Enter a token name, and set the type as Ingestion. Click Create API Token.

   5. Copy the API token.

4. Select the Cloud Provider for your API Token. Paste the API token from SolarWinds Observability into the Token field. Click Next to Continue.

   

5. Click Start Install to install the SolarWinds Observability agent on your SQL Sentry Portal machine.

   After the SolarWinds Observability agent is installed on your SQL Sentry Portal machine, the Platform Connect settings page is displayed. Here you can view your API token, temporarily disable any configured notification services, or Uninstall the Agent.

   

Configure a connection service in SolarWinds Observability

If you have not done so already, set up a PagerDuty or ServiceNow integration in SolarWinds Observability. For details, see Notification Services settings.

Add users to configure conditions and actions

Add users in SQL Sentry that will configure send to alerting channels actions to send notifications to notification services such as PagerDuty or ServiceNow in the event that a SQL Sentry condition is triggered. For details about adding users in SQL Sentry, see the Contact Management topic.

Configure a condition with the send to alerting channels action

Create SQL Sentry conditions and configure them to send alerts to PagerDuty or ServiceNow once they trigger with the send to alerting channels action. For details about the SQL Sentry alerting and response system, see Actions & Alerts Overview.

See Conditions for information about the types of Conditions in SQL Sentry. See SQL Sentry Actions for information about configuring actions in SQL Sentry.

Send to alerting channels PagerDuty and ServiceNow example

In this example, we display how to set up a SQL Server Deadlock Condition with the Send to Alerting Channels action.

1. Open SQL Sentry with an administrator account.

2. Click the All Targets node in the Navigator pane to apply the action globally. Open the Conditions pane (View > Conditions).

3. In the Conditions pane, click Add to open the Actions Selector.

4. Expand Deadlocks > SQL Server Deadlocks, and click the Send to Alerting Channels action. Click Ok to close the Actions Selector and return to the Conditions pane.

   

5. On the Conditions Pane Actions Settings tab, click the alerting channels where SQL Sentry will send an alert.

   

   We have selected to send an alert to our configured PagerDuty and ServiceNow notifications services.