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5.4. Customer Installed SQL Server

NOTE:  The instructions below apply if you are setting up a new installation of Supercharger and want to use your own SQL Server and not the SQL Server that installs by default with Supercharger. If you already have Supercharger installed and configured and need to migrate Supercharger data (load balancers, load balanced subscriptions, performance history, etc...) to another SQL Server, then please see this article.

We strongly recommend that you use the SQL Server that installs by default with Supercharger.

Supercharger does not use SQL Server in the traditional sense as a relational database nor does it store the organization’s business data or data normally considered to be specifically scoped into compliance regulations. Supercharger’s use of SQL server is for storage of system information and as a inter-process communication facility between manager and controllers.

Supercharger is designed to use a local instance of SQL Server Express 2016 to store:

• Status of Windows Event Collectors
• Performance monitoring data
• Windows Event Collection configuration settings

Supercharger automatically installs, secures and configures SQL Server Express on the manager. For Free Edition, we do not offer support for using a different installation of SQL Server. For Enterprise Edition customers with an active support contract, we may support, on a case-by-base basis at our sole determination, to support a customer installed instance of SQL server on another system. These are instructions related to such a scenario.

Requirements:

• Mixed Mode Authentication
• Service Broker enabled
• SQL Server login with sysadmin role membership which is used to: creates database, back up database, creates logins for each collector, alters database to single/multi user etc, connect to any database

We believe Supercharger will work OK on a day-to-day basis without sysadmin but it is required whenever you register a new Windows Event Collector or upgrade Supercharger to a new version. Supercharger should also work with most earlier versions of SQL Server including 2014.

1. Make sure SQL Authentication is enabled (mixed mode) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/configure-windows/change-server-authentication-mode
2. Run the following commands to create a user account for Supercharger. Specify a secure password in place of  ????????????????

USE MASTER
CREATE LOGIN ScManagerDbUser WITH PASSWORD=N'????????????????', CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF
GRANT CONNECT ANY DATABASE TO ScManagerDbUser 
ALTER SERVER ROLE [sysadmin] ADD MEMBER ScManagerDbUser

Installing Supercharger:

1. If you already installed Supercharger and it installed SQL Server 2016 Express, to cause Supercharger to prompt you for new SQL coordinates and credentials, uninstall SQL Server Express 2016 and proceed to the next step. If you have not already installed Supercharger, create this registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\130. This will make the installer think SQL Server 2016 is already installed and will skip it.

2. Open Supercharger in your browser. //server/supercharger. Eventually it will display a page saying it cannot connect to the SQL Server and it will give you an opportunity to enter SQL Server coordinates and credentials. It may take a couple minutes for this page to appear but it will. See next steps for guidance on server and credentials but note there is a slight chance in some browser versions that it will interrupt you while entering the information and you will have to start over. We are working to address this but be aware for now.
3. Provide the name SQL Server (localhost) including instance if applicable.
   • If using a default instance of SQL Server installed locally just put localhost
   • If SQL Server certificate is used, provide the same FQDN as in the CN of the certificate
   • If the appropriate SQL Server instance uses a custom port number append a comma and the port number to the server name. There is no need to specify the instance. So if your server name is lab-scsql-70 and port is 1521 you would simply enter lab-scsql-70,1521
4. Specify the user name and password from above
5. Click Continue
6. If the coordinates and credentials work, the manager will now connect to the SQL Server and, if not present, create the Supercharger database. Finally the dashboard will be displayed.