The “Paused” status in the Activity Monitor could be a symptom of a deeper issue within a SQL Server environment, possibly related to communication or service availability. If there is a question mark it likely indicates a connectivity or configuration issue that SSMS can’t resolve, hence its uncertainty about the server’s status.

The “RPC Server is Unavailable” error from the outside monitoring tool points towards a problem with the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service, which is essential for server communication. This could be due to network issues, firewall configurations, or the RPC service itself being disrupted or incorrectly configured.

To address these issues, here are a few steps you can take:

1. Check SQL Server Services: Ensure that all necessary SQL Server services are running. You can do this through the SQL Server Configuration Manager or the Services application in Windows. Particularly, ensure that the SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) service and SQL Server Browser service are running.
2. Firewall Configuration: Verify that your firewall is configured to allow SQL Server access. Ensure that ports used by SQL Server and the SQL Server Browser service (usually TCP port 1433 and UDP port 1434, respectively) are open. Additionally, check if the firewall is blocking RPC communication.
3. Network Configuration: Ensure that your network configuration allows for RPC communication. This might involve checking any VPN settings, network policies, or other network-related configurations that could affect connectivity.
4. RPC Service: Make sure the RPC services on both the SQL Server machine and the client machine are running properly. You can check this in the Services application in Windows.
5. SQL Server Configuration Manager: Use the SQL Server Configuration Manager to check the network configuration of SQL Server. Ensure that TCP/IP is enabled and correctly configured.
6. Reboot: Sometimes, a simple reboot of your SQL Server and client machine can resolve transient issues affecting connectivity and service availability.

If these steps don’t resolve the issue, it might be helpful to check the SQL Server error logs and Windows Event Viewer for any specific errors related to SQL Server or network services. These logs can provide more insight into what’s going wrong.