November 27, 2006 at 3:06 pm
I did a search and found an old review of Idera Diagnostic manager,but nothing else. Does anyone use or recommend Diagnostic Manager, DBArtisan, TeraTrax or Spotlight by Quest? I have been doing demos of them for the last few weeks and pretty much have an idea of which one I like the best, but the cost is kinda more than I feel my company will spend. I just started as a DBA and have no real training aside from some books and a HOTS 5 day class.
Thanks,
Bart
November 27, 2006 at 3:36 pm
We are using Symantec/Veritas' I3 software. It monitors all of our databases and alerts us when thresholds are exceeded. It sets default SQL Server thresholds, but you can adjust them how you want. Coolest part is that it will show you the future. For example, you gather a months worth of data. Based on that information you can get a glimpse of how next month will go. The more data, the better prediction. For example, lets say you have a years worth of data - I3 could tell you that based on last year, the period of 20 Nov to 5 Jan is when your database will see the heaviest use.
It does a lot of other stuff and we are finally learning just what it can do for us.
-SQLBill
November 28, 2006 at 6:53 am
I've been a DBA for about 7 years now (started with MSSQL 6.5) and spent many months in the beginning evaluating software just as you have. We did end up purchasing DBArtisan but this due to our need to manage multiple vendors RDBMS (Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server).
I still continue to look at newly released software and have yet to find anything (with one small exception) that will perform task that I can't already do with System/Performance Monitor, SQL Profiler and an Excel spreadsheet.
The exception I mentioned earlier would be Log Explorer by Lumigent. This has came very handy on several occasions. One of our developers can't seem to remember the predicate in update statements some times.
Don't get me wrong, there are great management utilities out there that can make thing a little easier and has more flashing lights, bells and whistles. If your budget is tight I would suggest a few training classes over software right now.
November 28, 2006 at 9:27 am
DBArtisan is my favorite. It gives you a bit more flexibility (specifically with triggers) than other tools I've used.
Take care,
Bert
"Speculations? I know nothing about speculations. I'm resting on certainties. I know that my Redeemer lives, and because He lives, I shall live also." - Michael Faraday
November 29, 2006 at 1:32 am
I've used SQL Diagnostic manager since around 1999 ( in different owned guises and in different client sites )
It's an excellent tool for the DBA who needs some background assistance with tuning, optimisation, diagnostics and trending. Yes you can do almost everything yourself, after all it only does server side tracing, but when you need a new car you don't ( normally ) build it yourself you buy one already done .. having diagnostic manager frees up my time to be more productive , as a Production DBA, and keep on top of the systems. There are a few things it does that you would seriously struggle to handle yourself but these are only useful if you have problematic applications/servers, I can state that without some of these advanced features I would not have been able to resolve problems so fast - in financial production systems this is obviously critical.
I recommend DM to all my clients.
[font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/
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