Question one is, what changed. Something occurred 2 weeks ago to cause this problem. Was there a patch to Windows? Hopefully you don't have automatic updates turned on on the server. Was there an application change, patch, or new release? Was there a server crash?
The SQL state = 08001 corresponds to "The specified database cannot be started. Either it does not exist, it is not a database, it is corrupt, or it is an older format."
The Error code = -832 corresponds to "An error occurred while attempting to establish a connection with the database server, but before attempting to connect to a database. Failure to
initialize a communication link during the connection attempt is an example
of this error. Creating a debug log file using the LogFile connection
parameter may provide more information."
You mentioned that there are many more connections than you would normally see. Are the repetitive connections from the same client machines/applications? You could be running up against the configured maximum number of user logins. Of course, there has to be some reason you are using many more connections than before. Are there a bunch of hung connections? Is the application failing to close things up properly? Is there a new user who is crashing the app frequently leaving defunct connections? Is there a new or modified nightly batch job that is craping on the server?
Do some analysis before the system locks up to see what is going on. It will probably lead you to the smoking gun. You may have to stay late and monitor things as the evening wears on in order to really figure out what is happening. You can also look at the Windows task manager to see if something lights up and/or requests a lot of database server time.
Regards,
Bill
