Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager 6.2 Review

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Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager 6.2 Review

swellguy

Mr or Mrs. 500

Points: 526
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October 4, 2010 at 9:15 pm

#239274

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager 6.2 Review

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Richard M. SSCertifiable Points: 7401 More actions · Answer 1

Great review.

We have been using SQLdm for quite a while now, focused on our main application and its DB server and it has provided timely and invaluable help when needed.

It makes it real easy in most cases to pinpoint the issues, and a quick glance at certain screens can give you a wealth of data that would take quite a few DMV's and time to analyze the results.

Now when the system users are experiencing issues we can just say with a quick look, and say "Nope, it's not the database" 🙂

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SQLRockstar SSCertifiable Points: 7004 More actions · Answer 2

Brad,

What feature set are you referring to when you say "the only one on the market"?

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https://thomaslarock.com

swellguy Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 526 More actions · Answer 3

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm really not any kind of shill for any particular vendor, and was legitimately impressed with the product.

Thomas,

I was talking about the 'Wait-state' feature set, which I hadn't seen anywhere else before. The products I compared for this were SQL Response and Foglight for SQL Server. I probably should have been more specific, as many of SQLdm's features are available in other products.

Thanks again, I appreciate the SS community, and was glad to share some observations.

SQLRockstar SSCertifiable Points: 7004 More actions · Answer 4

Brad,

Sorry...i forgot my manners...I also thought your article was well written, and I thank you for sharing.

As for the wait details, there is another product available that provides those details. If you are interested in doing another review I would love to arrange for you to get a trial version. Just let me know.

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https://thomaslarock.com

swellguy Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 526 More actions · Answer 5

Thomas,

No worries! Sure, I'd love to hear more. If anything, it's certainly made it clear to me that wait states need to be a part of the normal operational review cycle.

Thanks again,

Brad

tferguson SSC Veteran Points: 263 More actions · Answer 6

Thanks for the great article, Brad.

We've been using SQLdm for a number of years, we like it a lot. The History Browser is handy, too.

And we DBAs were glad when, a few versions back, they added Application Security to it, so that developers can use the tool from our Citrix site to view their environments' activities, etc.

Tim

swellguy Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 526 More actions · Answer 7

Appreciate the positive feedback, Tim.

I'm liking the idea of deploying a monitoring tool via Citrix, for developer use. Clever.

Vertigo44 SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4055 More actions · Answer 8

So I am evaluating products for my new job and I am trying to decide between this and TOAD. I'm leaning towards Idera. Does anybody prefer anything over DM?

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398872 More actions · Answer 9

Vertigo44 (11/16/2010)
So I am evaluating products for my new job and I am trying to decide between this and TOAD. I'm leaning towards Idera. Does anybody prefer anything over DM?

We use Idera DM at work. It really does do the job and does it pretty well. There are a few counters that I'd like to change out if I could, but overall, I'm happy with it.

That said, I've made the attempt to either replace Idera or add to it with Confio Ignite. While it doesn't cover some of the more traditional monitoring quite as well as Idera, it's a step above on the wait state monitoring & T-SQL performance metrics.

Sometimes, it comes down to the style of the tool as much as what it does.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

Todd Robinson Grasshopper Points: 20 More actions · Answer 10

One other thing I would consider when evaluating a product is whether the reports and other metrics you generate are going to be shared with non-technical people or developers. We chose Ignite simply because folks can easily grasp the waits and see exactly what we are seeing on our end. With a little discussion, we can help determine the root cause and work towards fixing the issue, whether it be the code, storage waits, etc.

swellguy Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 526 More actions · Answer 11

I appreciate the input on this; The SQL toolspace is crowded, so the more insight, the better.

Thanks for reading my article,

Brad

sqlrob SSChasing Mays Points: 627 More actions · Answer 12

The issue I find with SQL DM is Poor Support and lack of clear documentation in defining the Metrics on Reports. Most of the documentation are very vague.