Generating performance alerts

1. A method for generating performance alerts in a relational database management system comprising a relational database supported by a plurality of database nodes, the method comprising:

monitoring, with each of the plurality of database nodes, a predefined set of performance data associated with storage and retrieval of information against database objects stored in the relational database;

collecting the predefined set of performance data from the plurality of database nodes with a database application;

comparing the performance data to one or more predefined thresholds;

determining if any of the performance data exceeds the one or more predefined thresholds; and

generating an alert if any of the data exceeds one of the predefined thresholds,

wherein the relational database management system is a multi-tenant database system, and wherein the monitoring step includes monitoring, with each of the plurality of database nodes, the predetermined set of performance data further associated with the storage and retrieval of information from a plurality of tenants stored in tables of a common database image.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance data is structured query language (SQL) performance data.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance data comprises one or more of buffer gets or disk reads.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the alert is an email alert.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising purging collected performance data after a predetermined period of time.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein each alert is associated with a specific SQL query generated by a data request from a user of a user system associated with the database system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance data comprises an amount of memory used by a query.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance data comprises a number of executions in a predetermined time period.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance data comprises a number of database parse operations.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having one or more instructions thereon for generating performance alerts in a relational database management system comprising a relational database supported by a plurality of database nodes, wherein the relational database management system is a multi-tenant database system, and wherein the instructions when executed by one or more processors causing the one or more processors to:

monitoring, with each of the plurality of database nodes, a predefined set of performance data associated with storage and retrieval of information against database objects from a plurality of tenants stored in tables of a common database image;

collecting the predefined set of performance data from the plurality of database nodes with a database application;

comparing the performance data to one or more predefined thresholds;

determining if any of the performance data exceeds the one or more predefined thresholds; and

generating an alert if any of the data exceeds one of the predefined thresholds.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the performance data is structured query language (SQL) performance data.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the performance data comprises one or more of buffer gets, disk reads, central processing unit (CPU) time, elapsed time.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the alert is an email alert.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to purge collected performance data.

15. An apparatus for generating performance alerts in a relational database management system comprising a multi-tenant database system supported by a plurality of database nodes, the apparatus comprising:

a processor with a central processing unit (CPU); and

a storage device storing one or more stored sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:

monitor, with each of the plurality of database nodes, a predefined set of performance data associated with storage and retrieval of information against database objects from a plurality of tenants stored in tables of a common database image;

collect the predefined set of performance data from the plurality of database nodes with a database application;

compare the performance data to one or more predefined thresholds;

determine if any of the performance data exceeds the one or more predefined thresholds; and

generate an alert if any of the data exceeds one of the predefined thresholds.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the performance data is structured query language (SQL) performance data.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the performance data comprises one or more of buffer gets, disk reads, central processing unit (CPU) time, elapsed time.

18. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the alert is an email alert.

19. The apparatus of claim 15 , where the one or more stored sequences of instructions further cause the processor to purge collected performance data.