GSP1182

Overview

In this hands-on lab you'll learn how to assess your SQL Server configuration using Workload Manager Validation using Google Cloud Agent for Compute Workloads.

What you'll do

• Configure Workload Manager Evaluation
• Collect data from SQL Server database
• Review SQL Server best practice evaluation results

Note: If you're using a Chromebook, you will need to use a third-party RDP tool, like Remote Desktop 8 or [remmina], rather than the RDP button in the Cloud Console.

Setup and requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources are made available to you.

This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

• Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).

Note: Use an Incognito (recommended) or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents conflicts between your personal account and the student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.

• Time to complete the lab—remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.

Note: Use only the student account for this lab. If you use a different Google Cloud account, you may incur charges to that account.

How to start your lab and sign in to the Google Cloud console

1. Click the Start Lab button. If you need to pay for the lab, a dialog opens for you to select your payment method. On the left is the Lab Details pane with the following:

   • The Open Google Cloud console button
   • Time remaining
   • The temporary credentials that you must use for this lab
   • Other information, if needed, to step through this lab

2. Click Open Google Cloud console (or right-click and select Open Link in Incognito Window if you are running the Chrome browser).

   The lab spins up resources, and then opens another tab that shows the Sign in page.

   Tip: Arrange the tabs in separate windows, side-by-side.

   Note: If you see the Choose an account dialog, click Use Another Account.

3. If necessary, copy the Username below and paste it into the Sign in dialog.

   {{{user_0.username | "Username"}}}

   You can also find the Username in the Lab Details pane.

4. Click Next.

5. Copy the Password below and paste it into the Welcome dialog.

   {{{user_0.password | "Password"}}}

   You can also find the Password in the Lab Details pane.

6. Click Next.

   Important: You must use the credentials the lab provides you. Do not use your Google Cloud account credentials. Note: Using your own Google Cloud account for this lab may incur extra charges.

7. Click through the subsequent pages:

   • Accept the terms and conditions.
   • Do not add recovery options or two-factor authentication (because this is a temporary account).
   • Do not sign up for free trials.

After a few moments, the Google Cloud console opens in this tab.

Note: To access Google Cloud products and services, click the Navigation menu or type the service or product name in the Search field.

To begin, you will download and deploy the Google Cloud Agent for Compute Workloads in a simulated environment created for this purpose in Google Cloud.

1. In the Console, from the Navigation menu (), select Compute Engine > VM instances.

   

   If prompted, select the Google Cloud project assigned to your lab.

2. Click the RDP button next to the qlab-win-sql01 instance.

   

   Note: If you're using a Chromebook, you will need to use a third-party RDP tool rather than the RDP button.

3. Use the following credentials to complete the RDP login:

User name	labuser
Password	LabP@ssw0rd!

Note: If you have any issues logging in, wait a minute and retry.

Task 1. Create Workload Manager Evaluation for SQL Server

In this section, you will access Workload Manager Evaluation. Perform all the following steps from the RDP session.

1. Open Chrome browser installed on the Windows system you connected to.

2. Browse to the following url to login to Google Cloud:

   http://console.cloud.google.com

3. In Google Cloud, from the Navigation menu, click View all products to expand the menu.

4. In the Compute section click the Pin icon next to Workload Manager to add it to the Pinned menu section for quick access.

5. Using Workload Manager menu option click Evaluations.

   

6. Click New Evaluation

   

7. Enter the evaluation details and select SQL Server as the workload type as shown below.

   Evaluation name	sqlserver-evaluation
   Description	The evaluation is used to validate SQL Server lab instance
   Workload type	SQL Server

   

8. Select all evaluation rules and click Continue.

   

9. Enter the project name, select the region, and click Continue.

   

10. Use Does not repeat option for evaluation scheduling and click Continue.

    

11. Click Continue for Notifications.

12. Review all the options and click Create to create the evaluation

13. If you receive a warning about missing permissions, click GRANT AND CREATE to give the service account missing permissions.

    

Note: This operation can take up to 15 to 20 minutes to complete. You can continue with the next steps while the evaluation is being created in the background.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective.

Verify Workload Manager evaluation has been created.

Task 2. Secret Manager for database connection

In this task, you create a secret and add store the database account password.

1. In the Navigation menu, select Security > Secret Manager.

2. On the Secret Manager main page, click + Create Secret.

3. For the Name, enter: qwiklabs

4. For the Secret value, enter: LabP@ssw0rd!

5. Leave all other values at their default setting, and click Create Secret.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective.

Verify the secret has been created.

Task 3. Install and configure the Google Cloud Agent for Compute Workloads

In this section, you will install and configure the Google Cloud Agent for Compute Workloads. Perform all the following steps from the RDP session.

1. As an administrator, run the following commands from PowerShell:

   googet addrepo google-cloud-workload-agent https://packages.cloud.google.com/yuck/repos/google-cloud-workload-agent-windows-x86_64 googet install google-cloud-workload-agent

2. Open Notepad++ as an administrator and open configuration.json file located in C:\Program Files\Google\google-cloud-workload-agent\conf

3. Copy the following and replace the content in the configuration file

   Note: If prompted, click Yes to launch Notepad++ in Administrator mode to save the changes. { "log_level": "INFO", "common_discovery": { "collection_frequency": "10800s" }, "sqlserver_configuration":{ "enabled":true, "collection_configuration": { "collect_guest_os_metrics":true, "collect_sql_metrics":true, "collection_frequency": "60s" }, "credential_configurations": [ { "connection_parameters": [ { "host":".", "username":"sqluser", "secret": { "project_id":"", "secret_name":"qwiklabs" }, "port":1433 } ], "local_collection":true } ], "collection_timeout":"60s", "max_retries":5, "retry_frequency":"3600s" } }

4. As an administrator, run the following command from PowerShell:

   Restart-Service google-cloud-workload-agent

Note: If you get an error message when you run the above command, please go to Google Cloud console and refer to the notifications as shown below to verify that the evaluation is successfully created. If not, please wait for few minutes for the evaluation to be created and retry the operation.

Task 4. Run the evaluation

1. From the Navigation menu, using Workload Manager menu option click Evaluations.

2. Click sqlserver-evaluation to run the evaluation

3. Click Run and then click Evaluate to confirm.

4. Notice, among other things, SQL: Match max degree of parallelism to the number of CPUs on the server rule execution failed.

5. Using the RDP session, open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and use the following details to connect to the SQL Server

   Server name	localhost
   Authentication	SQL Server Authentication
   Login	sqluser
   Password	LabP@ssw0rd!

6. Open new Query editor and run the following script to set Max degree of parallelism to 4

   EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO EXEC sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 4; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO

7. As an administrator, run the following command from PowerShell to restart the service to force the data collection:

   Restart-Service google-cloud-workload-agent

8. Re-run the evaluation and verify that the rule execution no longer fails

Click Check my progress to verify the objective.

Verify Workload Manager evaluation has been executed successfully.

Congratulations!

You've successfully evaluated SQL Server configuration using Workload Manager.

Next steps / Learn more

To learn more about Workload Manager evaluations, refer to the Workload Manager Evaluation Guide and to learn more about Workload Manager best practices for SQL Server refer to the Best practices for SQL Server.

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Manual Last Updated August 07, 2025

Lab Last Tested August 07, 2025

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