How to check history of primary node in an Availability Group?
Here's my go-to query to pull the events that Aaron mentioned (availability_replica_state_change). This script also takes the liberty of converting the UTC time to your local time:
declare @xel_path varchar(1024);
declare @utc_adjustment int = datediff(hour, getutcdate(), getdate());
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- target event_file path retrieval --------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with target_data_cte as
(
select
target_data =
convert(xml, target_data)
from sys.dm_xe_sessions s
inner join sys.dm_xe_session_targets st
on s.address = st.event_session_address
where s.name = 'alwayson_health'
and st.target_name = 'event_file'
),
full_path_cte as
(
select
full_path =
target_data.value('(EventFileTarget/File/@name)[1]', 'varchar(1024)')
from target_data_cte
)
select
@xel_path =
left(full_path, len(full_path) - charindex('\', reverse(full_path))) +
'\AlwaysOn_health*.xel'
from full_path_cte;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------- replica state change events -------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;with state_change_data as
(
select
object_name,
event_data =
convert(xml, event_data)
from sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@xel_path, null, null, null)
)
select
object_name,
event_timestamp =
dateadd(hour, @utc_adjustment, event_data.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime')),
ag_name =
event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "availability_group_name"]/value)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
previous_state =
event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "previous_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)'),
current_state =
event_data.value('(event/data[@name = "current_state"]/text)[1]', 'varchar(64)')
from state_change_data
where object_name = 'availability_replica_state_change'
order by event_timestamp desc;
Look for availability_replica_state_change
events in the AlwaysOn_health
extended events session. If this session is not running:
ALTER EVENT SESSION AlwaysOn_health ON SERVER WITH (STARTUP_STATE = ON);
ALTER EVENT SESSION AlwaysOn_health ON SERVER STATE = START;
More info:
New AlwaysOn_health Extended Events Session in SQL Server 2012 RC0
Answering Questions with the AlwaysOn Dashboard
Monitoring Availability Groups Part 3 – Extended Events
AlwaysOn Extended Events
I used the following query that I got from EXCHANGE SPILL, but slightly modified it to convert time from UTC to local.
DECLARE @FileName NVARCHAR(4000)
SELECT @FileName = target_data.value('(EventFileTarget/File/@name)[1]', 'nvarchar(4000)')
FROM (
SELECT CAST(target_data AS XML) target_data
FROM sys.dm_xe_sessions s
JOIN sys.dm_xe_session_targets t
ON s.address = t.event_session_address
WHERE s.name = N'AlwaysOn_health'
) ft;
WITH base
AS (
SELECT XEData.value('(event/@timestamp)[1]', 'datetime2(3)') AS event_timestamp
,XEData.value('(event/data/text)[1]', 'VARCHAR(255)') AS previous_state
,XEData.value('(event/data/text)[2]', 'VARCHAR(255)') AS current_state
,ar.replica_server_name
FROM (
SELECT CAST(event_data AS XML) XEData
,*
FROM sys.fn_xe_file_target_read_file(@FileName, NULL, NULL, NULL)
WHERE object_name = 'availability_replica_state_change'
) event_data
JOIN sys.availability_replicas ar
ON ar.replica_id = XEData.value('(event/data/value)[5]', 'VARCHAR(255)')
)
SELECT DATEADD(HOUR, DATEDIFF(HOUR, GETUTCDATE(), GETDATE()), event_timestamp) AS event_timestamp
,previous_state
,current_state
,replica_server_name
FROM base
ORDER BY event_timestamp DESC;