February 4, 2014 at 8:55 am
Hi
First time poster on this forum so I apologise if there is already a topic about this elsewhere or even if I have posted in the wrong place.
I am looking for a suitable SQL Server monitoring tool so I can quickly identify where any problems are. I downloaded and used the trial version of both Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager and Redgate SQL Monitor 4. You only get 2 weeks with each and I barely scratched the surface on what they both can do before the trial period was over. I am also fairly new to all this SQL stuff.
With Idera's Diagnostic Manager, I thought the graphical representation of our SQL servers were great for quickly identifying problems. However, the Redgate SQL Monitor 4's alert function I thought was better than Idera's tool. Redgate's not only gives you alerts but also a snapshot of what processes were running on the PC and the server at the time. If it's a long running script alert then it provides details of the SQL script, the database it is running on and who is running the script, which I thought was really useful.
I could not find this amount of detail in Idera's tool, so I emailed them with screenshots from Redgate's tool and asked if they provided similar detail. They replied yes and has offered to demo it properly to me. However, before I do that, I just wanted to ask if anyone here has had any experience of both tools, what you all thought about them and which one you would recommend.
Or even if you know of others which you think are much better and I can look at those instead.
Thanks.
Rgds
Graeme
🙂
February 4, 2014 at 12:27 pm
g.mclachlan (2/4/2014)
HiFirst time poster on this forum so I apologise if there is already a topic about this elsewhere or even if I have posted in the wrong place.
I am looking for a suitable SQL Server monitoring tool so I can quickly identify where any problems are. I downloaded and used the trial version of both Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager and Redgate SQL Monitor 4. You only get 2 weeks with each and I barely scratched the surface on what they both can do before the trial period was over. I am also fairly new to all this SQL stuff.
With Idera's Diagnostic Manager, I thought the graphical representation of our SQL servers were great for quickly identifying problems. However, the Redgate SQL Monitor 4's alert function I thought was better than Idera's tool. Redgate's not only gives you alerts but also a snapshot of what processes were running on the PC and the server at the time. If it's a long running script alert then it provides details of the SQL script, the database it is running on and who is running the script, which I thought was really useful.
I could not find this amount of detail in Idera's tool, so I emailed them with screenshots from Redgate's tool and asked if they provided similar detail. They replied yes and has offered to demo it properly to me. However, before I do that, I just wanted to ask if anyone here has had any experience of both tools, what you all thought about them and which one you would recommend.
Or even if you know of others which you think are much better and I can look at those instead.
Thanks.
Rgds
Graeme
🙂
There are two others to evaluate. Dell (Quest) Spotlight on SQL Server and SQL Sentry. I am a Spotlight user, and love it (we monitor dozens of servers, and the tool also monitors replication, Windows Azure and VMware out of the box, and has a very rich and configurable alerting system), but you should choose the tool that best suits your needs. We dropped IDERA in favor of Spotlight.
I have heard great things about RedGate's tool, but we are happy with Spotlight. You should also know that there is no way you will get into the whole of any of these tools in a 2 week trial. We still find goodies in Spotlight after 2+ years in production!
Thanks
John.
February 4, 2014 at 1:28 pm
We use Idera DM. It does have the historic snapshots. I like it, but then it does what we need.
I have not had experiance with the others mentioned, however it really depends on what you want out of the package.
For some things SQL Server has a dashboard(s) - I personally have not used it much but it does give some info that you might want. (Right click the instance in object explorer and look under reports)
February 5, 2014 at 5:58 am
I have used, as a DBA, Idera, Spotlight, Foglight, Operations Manager and SQL Monitor. Currently, I work for Red Gate, so my view might be a little biased. All these tools get the basic job of monitoring and alerting done very well. In addition to them, I also recommend evaluating SQL Sentry.
It really depends on a couple of things which of these tools is best. If you're a very large enterprise client with thousands of servers spread around the world, I'd suggest SQL Sentry ahead of any of the other tools. If you're a smaller shop with, say, 15-20 servers, SQL Sentry might be overkill, depending on the size and load on those servers.
Small to mid-range, I absolutely support Idera & SQL Monitor. Both do the job fairly equally well. So, it comes down to approach, which works better for you. Cost may also be a factor and you'll note that licensing varies widely between the tool sets.
If you're more interested in specific query performance evaluation, you might also want to add in Solarwinds Ignite (used to be Confio). I don't think it's as good a monitoring software as some of the other solutions, but it's an amazing tool for performance tuning. It could be a good additional tool to any of the above.
If you have specific questions, let me know.
Understand though, a lot of monitoring, and picking monitoring tools, comes down to opinion and personal preferences, so everyone is going to have a slightly different view. They're all correct and they're probably all different.
"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
February 7, 2014 at 4:54 am
Thanks guys. i think if I knew what to use them for, then I might be in a better position to choose.
We are a National Library and have between 5 -10 SQL servers. Very small. Money is tight at the moment so I am only looking at monitoring 3 of our main servers for now, with the hope of adding more later.
As I am fairly new to this game, I am not 100% clear on what I should be monitoring and therefore unable to decide what tool would be best for us at this stage.
Thanks.
Graeme
February 7, 2014 at 5:59 am
We use SQL Sentry. We were in the process of looking for one and it came recommended by Tim Ford at a presentation. To be fair, they were sponsoring the PASS meeting, but from talking to him I learned that he uses it to monitor many more SQL Servers than we have. It works as an executable on the client, so it doesn't need (and rely on) a web server for reporting. It also doesn't try to hide its own activity.
I really like the product and would definitely recommend that you evaluate it. They have a datasheet you can download at http://www.sqlsentry.net/files/sql-sentry-product-datasheet.pdf and they do offer a free trial. We only use the Performance Advisor product.
HTH
February 7, 2014 at 6:33 am
g.mclachlan (2/7/2014)
Thanks guys. i think if I knew what to use them for, then I might be in a better position to choose.We are a National Library and have between 5 -10 SQL servers. Very small. Money is tight at the moment so I am only looking at monitoring 3 of our main servers for now, with the hope of adding more later.
As I am fairly new to this game, I am not 100% clear on what I should be monitoring and therefore unable to decide what tool would be best for us at this stage.
Thanks.
Graeme
You've just nailed one of the primary reasons why you should get a monitoring tool.
All the tools we've talked about have free downloads so you can try them out. I'd suggest doing that. See which one works for you.
One other point, regardless of the tool you ultimately choose, I strongly recommend you take the time to tune and tweak the alerts for the first 6-8 weeks you have the tool. Most people do one of two things, turn on everything which generates lots of noise so that they ignore the alerts, or, turn off all the alerts so they don't see the stuff they need. Tune the alerts so you get a high signal to noise ratio.
"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
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