Quasar Scan user guide

Auto Discovery (SQL Server only)

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The Quasar scan agent features auto discovery of SQL Server Instances and Databases.
This feature benefits organisations with large numbers of SQL Server hosts, as it fully automates accessing the SQL Server databases on a per host basis – no manual configuration is required like with the Static Configuration method.

This feature is SQL Server only, other DB engines will have to be configured as described in Static Configuration as normal.

Requirements

  • An agent will only perform auto discovery directly on the host upon which it resides, i.e. localhost or 127.0.0.1. Auto discovery cannot be performed from an agent to a remote machine.
    The standard practice here is to roll agents out to the SQL Server machines as you would with e.g. Windows servers / developer desktops, etc.
  • The user account for the agent must have sufficient permissions to list Windows services, and access the SQL Server instances and databases on the host.

Process

The Auto Discovery process is run as a job, and is selected in the New Job wizard by setting the SQL Database Scanner Action option to Auto Discover as shown here:

Auto-Discover Option

The process notes the Instances and Databases it finds in the Files table. If no instances are found on the host, the process will note that also.

Auto-Discover Results

Thus many SQL Server hosts can be grouped and have Auto Discover run on them in large batches, then the Files table reviewed to see whether all the wanted Instances and Databases are accounted for. The Auto Discover process is typically very fast compared to actual scanning, on the order of seconds for successful operations, and a few minutes worst-case if connection timeouts occur.

Any errors encountered are also noted in the Files table, so a comprehensive list is maintained.

The agent will also record the database information in a locally-stored auto-generated auto_databases.cfg file, which is consulted (along with any static configuration in local.cfg) for subsequent steps in the process, like connecting and scanning.