Database Monitoring
Beacon’s Database Monitoring module provides continuous, real-time visibility into the operational health of every registered database instance. It captures the vital signs of a database — active sessions, transaction behavior, locking activity, resource consumption, and replication status — and presents them through live dashboards and historical timelines.
This module is the foundation of Beacon’s observability model. It answers the fundamental question: “Is my database healthy right now, and how has it been behaving over time?”
Capabilities
Section titled “Capabilities”1. Connection Status Monitoring
Section titled “1. Connection Status Monitoring”Beacon tracks the availability and responsiveness of every registered database instance.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Online / Offline State | Real-time indicator of whether an instance is reachable. |
| Connection Latency | Time taken to establish a connection during health checks. |
| Uptime Tracking | Duration since the instance was last observed as available. |
| Last Checked Timestamp | When the instance was most recently probed. |
| Connection Errors | Recorded failures with error context for troubleshooting. |
Operational value: Immediately distinguishes between a database that is down, slow to respond, or unreachable due to network/configuration issues.
2. Active Session Monitoring
Section titled “2. Active Session Monitoring”Beacon provides a live view of all sessions connected to a database instance.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Active Sessions | Sessions currently executing a statement. |
| Idle Sessions | Connected sessions not currently executing work. |
| Idle-in-Transaction Sessions | Sessions holding an open transaction while idle — a common source of contention. |
| Session Duration | How long each session has been active or idle. |
| Session Origin | Application, user, or host associated with the session. |
| Current Query | The statement currently being executed by an active session. |
| Wait Events | What a session is currently waiting on (locks, I/O, etc.). |
Operational value: Reveals session buildup, abandoned transactions, and long-running activity that may be consuming resources or blocking others.
3. Transaction Activity Monitoring
Section titled “3. Transaction Activity Monitoring”Beacon tracks transaction throughput and behavior across the instance.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Commit Rate | Transactions successfully committed over time. |
| Rollback Rate | Transactions rolled back, indicating errors or application issues. |
| Long-Running Transactions | Transactions exceeding configurable duration thresholds. |
| Transaction Age | Elapsed time since each open transaction began. |
| Transaction State | Active, idle-in-transaction, or completed. |
Operational value: Long-running or frequently rolled-back transactions are leading indicators of locking pressure, bloat, and application-level defects.
4. Lock & Blocking Monitoring
Section titled “4. Lock & Blocking Monitoring”Beacon surfaces lock contention and blocking chains in real time.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Active Locks | All locks currently held across the instance. |
| Blocking Chains | Which sessions are blocking which others, and on what resource. |
| Lock Wait Duration | How long a session has been waiting for a lock. |
| Lock Type | Table-level, row-level, advisory, or other lock categories. |
| Deadlock Events | Recorded deadlocks with involved sessions and queries. |
| Contended Objects | Tables or rows most frequently involved in contention. |
Operational value: Blocking chains are a primary cause of sudden application stalls. Beacon makes them visible and traceable before they cascade.
5. Resource Utilization Monitoring
Section titled “5. Resource Utilization Monitoring”Beacon monitors how each database instance consumes system resources.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| CPU Utilization | Processor load attributable to database activity. |
| Memory Usage | Working memory, cache usage, and buffer activity. |
| Disk I/O | Read/write throughput and latency. |
| Storage Consumption | Database, table, and index size growth over time. |
| Cache Hit Ratio | Proportion of reads served from memory vs. disk. |
| Temporary File Usage | Spill-to-disk activity from large sorts or joins. |
Operational value: Identifies resource saturation, inefficient caching, and workload patterns that drive infrastructure cost.
6. Replication Status Monitoring
Section titled “6. Replication Status Monitoring”For instances participating in replication, Beacon tracks replication health.
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Replica Connectivity | Whether replicas are connected and streaming. |
| Replication Lag | Delay between primary and replica. |
| Replication State | Streaming, caught-up, or stalled. |
| Replica List | All known replicas and their individual statuses. |
Operational value: Replication lag directly affects read scaling, failover readiness, and data freshness guarantees.
7. Database Health Summary
Section titled “7. Database Health Summary”Beacon aggregates monitoring signals into a consolidated health view per instance.
| Indicator | Description |
|---|---|
| Health Score | A composite indicator derived from key monitoring signals. |
| Active Alerts | Any threshold-based warnings currently triggered. |
| Critical Events | Recent high-severity occurrences (deadlocks, outages, etc.). |
| Trend Direction | Whether health is improving, stable, or degrading. |
Operational value: Provides an at-a-glance status for each instance without requiring manual inspection of every metric.
Monitoring Views
Section titled “Monitoring Views”Beacon presents monitoring data across three complementary views:
Real-Time View
Section titled “Real-Time View”Live snapshots refreshed continuously — ideal for active incident response.
Timeline View
Section titled “Timeline View”Historical plotting of any monitored signal — ideal for spotting patterns and regressions.
Comparison View
Section titled “Comparison View”Side-by-side comparison of multiple instances — ideal for fleet-wide oversight.
Configuration Options
Section titled “Configuration Options”| Option | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Collection Interval | How frequently metrics are gathered. |
| Retention Window | How long historical monitoring data is retained. |
| Per-Instance Thresholds | Custom alert thresholds for specific databases. |
| Signal Enablement | Toggle which metrics are collected per instance. |
| Maintenance Windows | Suppress alerts during planned maintenance. |
Operational Scenarios
Section titled “Operational Scenarios”Scenario 1 — Sudden application slowdown A developer notices rising response times. The monitoring dashboard shows a growing blocking chain on a heavily updated table. The blocking session is an idle-in-transaction connection, which is terminated, restoring normal operation.
Scenario 2 — Overnight batch contention A scheduled batch job runs nightly. Beacon’s timeline view reveals recurring transaction spikes and lock waits during the batch window, prompting rescheduling or query optimization.
Scenario 3 — Storage growth planning The storage consumption chart shows steady growth over months, giving teams lead time to plan capacity expansion before thresholds are reached.
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Beacon’s Database Monitoring module delivers continuous, contextual awareness of database health. By unifying sessions, transactions, locks, resources, and replication into a single observable surface, it enables teams to detect issues early, diagnose them quickly, and maintain reliable database operations.