Post reply

SQL Monitoring Software

  • October 4, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    #224708

    We're looking into purchasing some third-party monitoring software like Quest or Idera or one of the others.

    Just wondering what experiences people have had with these and other software, and what ones people have found the most useful?

  • October 5, 2010 at 4:54 am

    #1231575

    I have used Idera Diagnostic Manager and it does a great job in monitoring the instances

    Pradeep Adiga
    Blog: sqldbadiaries.com
    Twitter: @pradeepadiga

  • October 5, 2010 at 7:19 am

    #1231671

    We use Quest Spotlight and I think it's excellent.. I'm sure you can get trial downloads to see what suits you best.

  • October 5, 2010 at 9:11 am

    #1231801

    I would recommend Idera.

  • October 6, 2010 at 11:44 am

    #1232876

    A lot of this depends on your environment and SQL estate. If you have a small number of servers with a limited number of transactions I would say yes, Idera or Spotlight does a great job. In fact, Idera made it through my product selection process at my previous job.

    If you have a SQL Estate with a large number of concurrent users (est 10000+) with a large number of database transactions (est 500,000+ per day) then there isn't really a product on the market that does the job with a small enough footprint. In this situation I would recommend tailoring your own monitor solution using a combination of perfmon and server side traces (custom and default).

    On the whole its down to you're environment and how much of a footprint you can tolerate without impacting application performance. If I had to choose again between Idera and Quest, I'd still go with Idera.

  • October 6, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    #1232915

    We use Quest Spotlight and Performance Analysis in our shop. I will have to say that even though we have Spotlight, it's not the end all monitoring tool that I rely on for monitoring our SQL Server environment.

    For the 20,000 foot view of our server environment, Spotlight helps me make quick assesments on the peformance load of the server. When I have to diagnose application timeouts I still utilize SQL Server Profiler and the execution plans provided by the optimizer. The combination of Spotlight and SQL Server Profiler allow me to address a broad range of performance issues.

    In addition, Spotlight allows me to turn on threshold alarms for a variety of items in SQL Server. This allows me to keep track of our SQL Servers via my Blackberry when I'm not phyically at my desk.

    😀

  • October 6, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    #1232927

    I've used Spotlight, and later Idera..but now basically I just have my own reporting page that gives me at-a-glance info on every server (failed job list, long running jobs, replication latency, low drive space, and blocking are also on the page, but not shown).

  • October 6, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    #1232932

    Derrick,

    That dashboard is actually better than Spotlight because you can see all instances at once. Good job!

    😀

  • October 6, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    #1232936

    Thanks - its also usable and easily understandable by the business people (color coded), developers, and anyone else who might need that info, but doesn't want to have a full client install like spotlight or idera. I've been suggesting doing something similar to this to all other DBAs I've spoken to (plus it's all free - written in Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, hosted on IIS, and technically could run on SQL Express, though mine isn't). Some day when I have enough time I'll do a walkthrough of this with some of the scripts/schemas I use for anyone who hasn't ever done an asp.net page.

    edit: just a note - I do still use SCOM for any major things, like services going down, drives filling up unexpectedly, unable to ping, etc.

  • October 6, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    #1233134

    Thanks for all the comments guys, much appreciated.

    and yes, that Dashboard of yours Derrick Smith is awesome!

  • October 6, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    #1233139

    We use SQL Server Sentry and a mix of my own toolkit packages and alerts for smaller servers.

    Just trial a load and see which fits your expectations and budget the best.

    Hope this helps,
    Rich

    [p]
    [/p]

  • October 11, 2010 at 3:13 am

    #1234841

    Hi,

    Using Idera Diagnostic Manager 6.2 for our production clusters and works a treat. Users ask 'What queries were running at 3am and what was the server load' and we can answer them in a flash.

    Also, love the Blackberry integration which allows DBA's to monitor remotely, run queries and restart or reboot if absolutely necessary.

    Only problem is cost but you do really get what you pay for.

  • October 11, 2010 at 5:12 am

    #1234898

    Thanks guys.

  • July 7, 2011 at 9:25 am

    #1349777

    Derrick,

    GREAT Dashboard!

    I wish I knew how to create something like that!!:w00t:

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply