Best all-round monitoring tool for
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Morning all.
I've been asked to garner the opinions of the masses as to a best-of-breed monitoring solution for our SQL2008 instances. Having done a search of the forums it seems that this was last discussed two to three years ago, and while the results may well still stand I thought it best to ask what people use and/or recommend for general all-round monitoring of performance, efficiency, expensive queries, blocking, etc etc.
Our system runs off one main server hosting a number of different databases, which are themselves spread across a number of files on an enterprise SAN. We have hundreds of sessions connected pretty much at all times other than a short window in the early hours of the morning when our main systems are unavailable. Due to the increasing load on the server we're continually tuning the performance and tweaking queries, and we're getting to the point where the individual returns are so small that it's difficult to know for sure where best to concentrate our efforts so this tool would hopefully be useful in that. We also need to be able to diagnose and resolve errors very quickly as any downtime is unacceptable during business hours.
I know that SQLServerCentral itself uses Red-Gate tools (SQL monitor) and the people in the threads in 2010 were suggesting various others including Confio and Idario (?). We want something that will be able to notify an administrator if errors go beyond a given threshold, and it would be nice if we could forensically work out what was causing an error or slowdown after it has finished or been resolved, but I don't know if anything has that ability. Cost isn't too much of an issue - if it's the best and will accomplish what we're trying to do then we're willing to pay for it accordingly.
Thanks in advance
Kev
EDIT: It seems I missed part of the subject off... Can a mod sort that out? Should have been 'for SQL 2008 production system'
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To name a few, product - company
SQL Monitor - Red-Gate
Idera DM - Idera
Spotlight - Quest\Dell
Foglight - Quest\Dell
SQL Sentry - SQL Sentry
Solarwinds have started doing an application monitoring module which connects to a ODBC database.
Other people will probably chip in with more
My advice would be to get a copy of each (Foglight will be tricky, best off speaking to Quest\Dell as it is a complex install so they usually get a technician to do it) play with them and see which one you like best.
In the past I have used Idera and Spotlight, they did the trick for us.
But it would all come down to your personal preference, what your looking for and what suits you best.
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I have used Redgate SQLMonitor, Quest Spotlight and Idera Diagnostic Manager at various sites and found them all to be competent - though the user interfaces could have been more responsive for all 3.
However I haven't seen the latest versions so can't comment further.
I saw a demo of SQL Sentry Performance Advisor last year and was VERY impressed, but I have yet to see it in a production environment.
I suggest you get demos of everything, and some offer free trials. I guess that cost is probably not an issue as you have just one server?
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I guess that cost is probably not an issue as you have just one server?
That's true - that server has a huge number of CPUs in it though so per-CPU pricing will be the killer 🙂
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Kevin Gill (2/6/2013)
I guess that cost is probably not an issue as you have just one server?
That's true - that server has a huge number of CPUs in it though so per-CPU pricing will be the killer 🙂
How many CPU's are we talking? Also not getting confused between CPU's and cores?
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SQL Monitor is done I belive on a instance basis
Idera is done on an instance basis
Spotlight is done on a server or CPU basis (unsure if the server relates to instance or if its the physical box, last time I purchased it was physical but you would need to double check with Quest)
SQL Sentry is done per instance
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Hmm - could be lots of cores. Just checking now.
It has 16 cores which I believe are spread across 4 CPUs, so maybe not that dangerous.
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DISCLOSURE: I work for Red Gate Software.
I've used all the major tools and most of them against a production environment. Each of them does different things for you in varying levels of detail and in different ways. I'll freely admit to a bias, but here are the three I'd evaluate:
Red Gate SQL Monitor (of course)
SQL Sentry
Confio Ignite
Our software is a good choice for general monitoring, up-time, guidance on performance problems, historical information tracking & custom metrics and alerts. SQL Sentry is good for highly detailed monitoring and nth degree drill-down, customizable alerting, and some fairly sophisticated tools for diagnosing performance issues. Ignite is excellent for identifying exactly which queries are causing you performance problems, some general monitoring, some alerting.
In addition to what these things do, you'll want to look at cost because for some of the higher-end products, you're paying higher end pricing.
If you do decide to evaluate SQL Monitor and you need any input, get in touch.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Grant Fritchey (2/6/2013)
Red Gate SQL Monitor (of course)SQL Sentry
Confio Ignite
Our software is a good choice for general monitoring, up-time, guidance on performance problems, historical information tracking & custom metrics and alerts. SQL Sentry is good for highly detailed monitoring and nth degree drill-down, customizable alerting, and some fairly sophisticated tools for diagnosing performance issues. Ignite is excellent for identifying exactly which queries are causing you performance problems, some general monitoring, some alerting.
I've just googled Ignite and that looks interesting from a debugging and development efficiency point of view but their website says that it doesn't do routine monitoring, so that would be an as-well rather than an instead presumably. We've used a trial of SQLSentry Plan Explorer and that's an amazing piece of kit for working out the issues with a given query, and we've used some red gate related stuff for backups etc in the past I think though that was done by our last DBA so I've not seen any of it operating. I guess I'll recommend that we get hold of trials of these three things then if we can. I've had a quick look at Spotlight/Foglight too and they look quite impressive. Foglight in particular may be useful as we're also (in parallel as it were) looking for something to monitor our farm of ASP.NET servers.
If you do decide to evaluate SQL Monitor and you need any input, get in touch.
Will do, thanks.
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I won't say bad things about the competition, but be sure you do a VERY thorough evaluation of the Quest/Dell offerings. Just saying.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Grant Fritchey (2/6/2013)
I won't say bad things about the competition, but be sure you do a VERY thorough evaluation of the Quest/Dell offerings. Just saying.Noted, thanks 🙂
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I have used Idera Diagnostic Manager for a log time now. I really like their dashboard where you have a one shot view of all the metrics that you would want to identify any performance issues.
I also use there alert system to get alerts on my email. You can tweak there already made templates for most of the monitoring metrics of a server : like cpu usage, job failed, deadlocks, disk io, disk space, page fragmentation,locks and blocks and lots more. Even reconfigure your own threshold for those metrics [Normal,Informational,Warning,Critical] according to your own preferences.. You even have a choice to create your own metrics.
This alert has greatly relived me from worrying about the server state and not having to babysit the server all the time.
I have not used REDGATE tools , but really want to try it. So I cannot compare between these tools as i have not tested all. I'm just writing here some of the features that may be useful and exactly what you are looking for.
Overall, Idera DM is a tools where Identifying performance related issues is very easy and quick. Further Diagnose and troubleshooting may take some more effort. Dm won't do everything for you.
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I have been using Confio Ignite for about a year and half and it is wonderful. I tested many and this was the easiest to setup with virtually no overhead on the servers that I was monitoring. I did not have to install anything on my production servers. You can easily drill down into issues, right to the query causing the problems and see if it is a new problem or something that has been building over time. Tuning advice and the actual execution plan are just a click away. Trending analysis can go back a year depending on how you set it up. Alerts can be created to notify you of issues right away. It is just a great tool that becomes your best friend.
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+1 for Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager. I use it and have tried Red Gate's tool as well but preferred Idera because it had a nicer "look and feel"...decent built in reporting tools as well. Both do pretty much the same thing...I believe it's personal preference...
______________________________________________________________________________Never argue with an idiot; Theyll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience
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I've also been evaluating monitoring software. Spotlight has changed to an instance pricing model, which could get pretty expensive pretty fast. We were quoted about $1,500 per instance. There's also no easy way to switch from one instance to another. We were thinking of using a floating license to install as needed. It would be a PITA to do so.
I still like their tools, but they make it more difficult now.
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