How-To SBS Troubleshooting

Monitoring Database on SBS 2008 grows too big

CloudWarrior October 3, 2012 No Comments

For those of you who worked with SBS 2003 you may know that there is difference how the monitoring database is handled. In the previous SBS 2003 the database did not have a size limitation and was able to grow as large as required. You would never get this problem.  In [easyazon-link asin=”0672329573″ locale=”us”]SBS 2008[/easyazon-link] this has changed and is no longer the case. [easyazon-link asin=”0735620709″ locale=”us”]SBS 2008[/easyazon-link] is using SQL Express 2005 and the database has a 4GB limit. I have noticed for few days brief disconnect from the SBS 2008 server and started investigate. My Event log is full of this error:

Checked the size of SBSMonitoring database and of course I am over the 4GB limit. You can see the database under this path:

C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft SQL ServerMSSQL.1MSSQLData

Here are step how to fix it, actually it is very straight forward process and will take probably 15 minutes of your time 🙂

  1. Stop any backup you may running in SBS 2008 or Shadow Protect
  2. Go to RUN and type Service, right click and run as Administrator
  3. Once the Service window opens scroll down and stop SQL Server (MONITORING) service
  4. Scroll down and stop Windows SBS Manager service
  5. Now navigate to C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft SQL ServerMSSQL.1MSSQLData folder and backup/move these 2 files SBSMonitoring.mdf and SBSMonitoring_Log.Ldf
  6. Insert these new, empty and clean database files back to the same location (download the files from here)
  7. Now go back and restart SQL Server (Monitoring) service and Windows SBS Manager service, wait it takes few seconds to start the services

Once you have replaced the database few more steps are required on SBS –  configure SBS 2008 Alert Notifications:

  1. Open the Windows SBS Console
  2. Select the Network tab
  3. Select the View notification settings task from the task pane on the right hand side
  4. Select the Email Address tab and enter in your email address for notifications
  5. Select OK to close and save the settings

Last steps that is needed – configure Reports on [easyazon-link asin=”0735620709″ locale=”us”]SBS 2008[/easyazon-link]

  1. Open the Windows SBS Console
  2. Select the Reports tab
  3. Configure the report to contain the information you need and select OK

Once all steps completed you should be back in business and have no problem with Monitoring database on your server.

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”0735620709″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PykjISpTL._SL160_.jpg” width=”131″]

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