iSQLCare Platform suite

Operations and insight for serious SQL Server estates

iSQLCare Platform brings together automated maintenance (Agent), deep health diagnostics (Doctor), and specialized consulting (Assist)—aligned tooling and expertise that keeps SQL Server estates stable, secure, and fast.

Explore Doctor Explore Agent Explore Assist

One platform, two workloads

Use Doctor where you need answers—trend-aware health scoring, remediation workflows, and reports your team can trust. Use Agent where you need reliability—backups, integrity checks, index care, and orchestration without depending on SQL Server Agent on every edition.

iSQLCare Doctor

Health analysis, HTML (and optional PDF) reports, remediation wizards, and multi-instance telemetry—wrapped in a WPF configurator your DBAs actually want to open.

Per-instance schedules & full health pipelines
Perf sampling alongside deep checks
Licensing + feeds aligned to enterprise controls
Waits, TempDB, security posture, catalogs & deep DMV coverage

Feature details →

iSQLCare Agent

Straightforward scheduling in the Configurator, expressive retries, and a desktop experience—including optional import paths from legacy SQL Agent when your edition permits.

Backups with Express-friendly ZIP workflows
CHECKDB, stats, indexes, orchestration steps
DPAPI-protected secrets & email history

Feature details →

iSQLCare Assist

Specialized SQL Server consulting & support: troubleshooting, performance tuning, migrations, architecture reviews, and operational guidance—delivered through flexible service-hour packages.

Performance & stability deep dives
Incident response + root-cause remediation
Architecture, HA/DR, cloud, and modernization guidance
Flexible hour bundles or retainers

Feature details →

Monitoring & remediation

iSQLCare Doctor

iSQLCare Doctor pairs a Windows service with a desktop configurator (WPF). Full health-check runs consolidate DMV + host probes—including CPU, TempDB, disk, index and statistics configuration and analysis—plus weighted scoring, warnings, HTML output, and optional PDF, guided by catalogs under ProgramData.

Multi-instance monitoring

Several instances in one footprint; Windows/SQL auth, encryption, certificate trust.

Per-instance enable/disable, labels, duplicate/remove
Add-instance wizard with connection testing and deployment of iSQLCare monitoring repositories where applicable
Configuration and feeds live alongside license material under ProgramData (see deployment layout)

Scheduling & execution

Per-instance calendars — daily / weekly templates, guard windows, recurrence, and cadence for the full Doctor run
The Windows Doctor service drives the orchestration loop, queues the next runnable instance, enforces licensing, and invokes the scheduler
Keeps heavier deep checks separate from lighter background telemetry (see sampling below)

Performance & workload analysis

DoctorRunner aggregates ring-buffer telemetry, DMV rollups, and Windows signals so hotspots stay visible alongside the headline score.

CPU & schedulers — RING_BUFFER_SCHEDULER_MONITOR style host-vs-SQL snapshots, saturation cues, MAXDOP & cost threshold vs topology guidance, NUMA imbalance detection
Memory — OS footprint, buffer manager signals (including PLE), partial fallback queries if batches fail partially; optional 0–100 MemoryHistory pressure narrative when repositories exist
Plans & workload — cache churn, optimize-for-ad-hoc cues, workload leaders from dm_exec_query_stats, live active batches
TempDB — file layout vs CPU-aware minimums, version-store posture, contention / latch hotspots
Waits & I/O — PAGEIOLATCH / WRITELOG / CXPACKET / SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD / locking families; dominant-wait alerting; optional per-volume DMV stats
Concurrency — live blocking/blocker chains, long-running open transactions with warn/critical thresholds, optional collectors + history previews mirrored to the blocking pattern
Host storage telemetry — WMI free-space curves, PerfDisk trending, NTFS allocation sizing vs recommended SQL layouts
Per-drive free/used ratio with configurable warn threshold (commonly ~85%) via WMI or fallback paths

CPU, TempDB, disk, index & statistics — configuration & analysis

These areas map directly to the feature catalog: Doctor compares live settings and workload evidence to recommended patterns, then rolls findings into warnings and the overall score.

CPU configuration — reads max degree of parallelism and cost threshold for parallelism, compares to topology-based guidance, and flags NUMA skew and scheduler saturation.
TempDB configuration — data-file count vs recommended minimums for the CPU layout, version-store stress, and allocation / PAGELATCH-style contention.
Disk and volume configuration — logical-disk usage (WMI), per-volume I/O rollups, PerfDisk samples for trending, and NTFS allocation unit size vs 64 KB best practice for SQL data files.
Index analysis — fragmentation over configurable page thresholds, missing-index DMVs with minimum-usage filters, plus unused and disabled indexes (de-duplicated against other fixes).
Statistics analysis — highlights statistics past the configured warn-day age so stale optimizer inputs are visible before plans skew.

Security & compliance signals

Identity hygiene — expanded sysadmin membership, orphaned DB users, permissive PUBLIC grants server- and database-wide
xp_cmdshell surface — configuration flag, correlated Agent steps + plan-cache hits + heuristic module scans where metadata allows
Database-folder ACL auditing with a summarized folder-risk score wherever Windows paths resolve
Instance snapshots — backup compression defaults, xp_cmdshell state, Query Store rollout per qualifying user database

Lifecycle, backups & database health

Edition + support narrative from SERVERPROPERTY cues, lifecycle classification, Instant File Initialization probe, uptime hygiene cues
Build-catalog mapping — aligns engine builds against the synced sql_versions feed for risk cues and freshness
Backups — last-good full timelines per database; CHECKDB lineage from DBCC DBINFO with staleness escalation
Compatibility thresholds, disruptive auto-shrink/close toggles, data/log ergonomics plus VLF awareness
Index & stats posture — fragmentation, missing-index DMVs filtered for signal, dormant or disabled indexes, aged statistics alarms
SQL Agent job hygiene where available — failures, runtime drift versus recent averages, “silent” jobs lacking history windows
Support narrative — major version maps to Microsoft in-support / extended-support / out-of-support messaging; IFI guidance names the engine service account for volume maintenance rights
Uptime hygiene — Windows boot and SQL start times (WMI / instance metadata) with ~180-day patch/restart nudges when either drifts too long
IO latency repository (when deployed) — collector health, recent alerts, worst-latency previews; warns if expected jobs/tables/procedures are missing while respecting Express/Agent expectations

Overall health scoring, reports & e-mail

Weighted OverallHealthScore (0–100) blends memory/TempDB, disaster-readiness indicators, WAIT stats, catalogs, indexing, transactional risk, scheduling signals, NUMA cues, automation posture, compatibility, CPU, backups, Agent behavior, statistics, Query Store cues, plus configuration drift—warnings drive section penalties mapped to graded outcomes.

HTML narrative + tabular appendix under the configured output root; PDF export wherever the pipeline supports it
Historical HTML window with trend scaffolding when persisted doctor-run schema is wired in
SMTP summaries on cadence-aligned schedules via SmtpSchedule; DPAPI-backed credentials inside the GUI
Output explorer — browse executions, reopen artifacts, diff adjacent runs visually

Performance sampling & online feeds

Standalone PerformanceSampler service worker — configurable 15s–24h cadence independently of DoctorRunner, persisting trimmed perf history buckets
Feeds CPU snapshots, DMV memory gauges, WMI disk deltas, optional IO latency JSON when monitoring repositories permit
Authorized download of SQL build catalogs (`X-License-Id`) plus checksum-diff refresh jobs so teams know updates exist before applying binaries
License registry pings + downloadable doctor builds via REST (/v1/updates/doctor) compared to MSI file versions

Licensing, remediation & operations

Offline RSA packages, revocation lists, fingerprints, clocks-guard parity, blended with online suspension / stale-registry logic
SMTP + startup GUI chimes — expiry runway, brittle registry connectivity, pending doctor binaries
Remediation assistant — gated execution of scripted fixes surfaced from diagnostics (honors grace/licensing rules)
Service toolkit — MSI-aware install/start/stop, diagnostics bundle, elevation helpers, Sysadmin grants, rotating Serilog tail
Configuration hygiene — Import/Export JSON with DPAPI-protected secrets, bundled offline license onboarding docs, signed license request export
Developer-only knobs — optional environment-variable bypasses documented for lab builds only (unsupported in production fleets)

Components (overview)

Typical MSI layout ships coordinated binaries—rename prefixes may vary by SKU, but responsibilities stay consistent:

Desktop GUI — configuration, Run now, SMTP tests, catalogs, artifact history
Windows service hosts DoctorRunner schedules, sampling workers, catalog sync, licensing gates, and asynchronous SMTP workers
Shared core bundles SQL probes, scheduling, licensing, feeds, remediation hooks, reporting
WiX-published installer aligns GUI + services + ProgramData scaffolding in a supported layout

Automation

iSQLCare Agent

iSQLCare Agent is a Windows service plus desktop Configurator: JSON-first job definitions with easy wizard-driven schedules (always in your machine’s local time), DPAPI secrets, portable workflows—and deep parity with documented backup, verify, CHECKDB, stats, index, orchestration and e-mail presets.

Job catalogue

Presets cover backups, verify-only probes, randomized drills, CHECKDB, statistics and index hygiene, scripted steps, Host orchestration, and scheduled e-mail digests—aligned with documented JSON definitions.

Backup full/differential with optional copy-only & log truncate after full
ZIP-after-backup for Express tiers without native compression
Retention by age (BackupRetentionDays) or version count
Log backups (BackupLog) respecting recovery models
Integrity check (DBCC CHECKDB) across targeted or all user databases
Check backup (RESTORE VERIFYONLY … WITH CHECKSUM) on latest backups from a linked full/diff job—including .bak.zip extraction/cleanup pipelines
Randomized backup drill — samples one FULL (HEADERONLY BackupType = 1), verifies with checksum; zipped backups extract transiently beside originals
Statistics refresh honors StatisticsMaxAgeDays (commonly defaults to 30) or STATS_DATE misses; indexes reorganize/rebuild rowstore tiers using fragmentation/page thresholds
Custom T-SQL and host orchestration mixing SQL with .ps1/.bat/.cmd without xp_cmdshell
Scheduled e-mail digests of job history (EmailRecipients overrides or pooled AlertTo defaults)

Scheduler & resilience

Easy recurring schedules—daily, weekly, or custom patterns—with exact times in your server’s local time zone
Need more nuance than a daily/weekly preset? Tune recurrence in plain terms inside the wizard—local-server time stays explicit, and edge cases prompt guidance before jobs go live.
Same job never overlaps concurrent executions (DisallowConcurrentExecution); stagger backups, CHECKDB, or rebuild-heavy jobs consciously
Retry engine—fixed/backoff curves, classifications, verbose history surfaces

Operations surface

Rolling daily logs (agent-YYYYMMDD.log) under ProgramData plus configurable retention (LogRetentionDays); layered SQLCARE_AGENT_CONFIG_DIR JSON overrides welcome
Configurator import wizard from SQL Agent (where Agent metadata exists)
Configurator import digs into msdb (blocked on Express), maps T-SQL / PowerShell / CmdExec jobs into scripts, carries schedules across with matching recurrence where possible, optionally prefers Host orchestration, and can annotate/disable legacy Agent jobs once reviewed—validate database targets afterward
Configurator “Run now” mirrors scheduling logic with safeguards when the Windows service must be registered/running
DPAPI-protected secrets, offline RSA bundles, optional online status server—inactive/revoked states or prolonged HTTP outages pause scheduled executions until connectivity returns
SMTP + GUI cues for nearing license expiry plus repeated alerts when validation endpoints stay unreachable beyond policy

Security & portability notes

Custom scripts resolve from DPAPI blobs, literal text, or .sql paths—nothing sensitive stored as cleartext JSON when protected
Shell orchestration executes on the service host identity for scheduled paths, or the interactive user when invoking Run now from Configurator—as documented in Agent features

Components (overview)

Typical MSI layout ships coordinated binaries—ProgramData prefixes may still show legacy names on older installs, but responsibilities stay consistent:

Desktop Configurator — connection profiles, jobs, schedules, retries, SMTP wizardry, Agent import paths, Run now, HTML history export
Windows service executes scheduled workloads, persists execution history beside logs, and enforces layered configuration
Shared core binds scheduling fidelity, retries, DPAPI secrecy, RSA licensing workflows, optional online gates, and history surfaces
WiX installer publishes GUI + services + ProgramData scaffolding in vendor-supported footprints

Consulting & support

iSQLCare Assist

iSQLCare Assist is a professional consulting and support service designed to help teams maintain stable, secure, and high-performing Microsoft SQL Server environments—through flexible hour bundles, retainers, and project-based engagements.

What we deliver

Performance optimization — query tuning, indexes, memory, TempDB, storage utilization, and workload efficiency
Troubleshooting & incident response — blocking, deadlocks, high CPU, slow databases, failed jobs, backups, unexpected SQL behavior
Health checks & best practices — stability, security, performance, availability, and operational maturity recommendations
Architecture & infrastructure guidance — HA/DR, virtualization, storage, cloud integration, deployment reviews
Maintenance & operations — backups, CHECKDB, index maintenance, patch planning, monitoring strategies, automation routines
Migration & upgrades — version upgrades, server moves, consolidation, modernization initiatives

Flexible service model

Engage as needed—consume expert hours when you need them, or set a predictable cadence for ongoing support.

Hour packages
Monthly retainers
Remote consulting
Priority support agreements
Project-based assistance

Ideal for

Companies without a dedicated DBA team
IT departments needing senior SQL Server expertise
Organizations requiring proactive database support
Mission-critical SQL Server environments
Performance and stability improvement initiatives

Why choose iSQLCare Assist

Specialized Microsoft SQL Server expertise
Practical, results-oriented approach
Fast response and direct technical assistance
Enterprise-grade operational experience
Flexible engagement model
Integration with the iSQLCare ecosystem (Doctor + Agent)

iSQLCare Agent ↔ SQL Server Agent

Many teams adopt Agent specifically for editions (like Express) without native SQL Agent—or for centralized JSON workflows and portability.

Capability comparison between iSQLCare Agent and SQL Server Agent
Capability	iSQLCare Agent	SQL Server Agent
SQL Express friendly	Designed for	Unavailable on Express
Windows service execution	Yes	Yes (where Agent exists)
Portable JSON workflows	First-class	SSMS/UI driven
HTML execution reports	Yes — Configurator HTML export and e-mail digests	No built-in HTML reports for job history
Predefined maintenance job types	Built-in catalog — index maintenance; backups; statistics updates; database integrity (e.g. CHECKDB); backup verify and test restore	Assemble ad hoc with separate steps and schedules per task
Import legacy Agent jobs	Wizard (needs Agent metadata)	Native

Ready to line up Doctor and Agent?

Pair preventative automation with investigative depth. The iSQLCare team can advise on sizing, licensing, and deployment sequencing.

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