Which one of these SQL Monitoring tool is the best?? Please advise..!

[SQLDBA]

I am in the process of evaluating some SQL Performance Monitoring /DBA
tool to purchase (For SQL Server 2000). I have the following list of
software that I came across and have to finalize which one to recomend
for purchase by my company.

Quest Central® for SQL Server
Performance Center by Embarcadero (dbartisan)
Performance analysis by BMC Software solutions
SQL Server Management by netIQ

I would greatly appreciate if anyone can give me a comparison/ any
suggestions on the above mentioned applications... !

Has anyone used/currently using any of these applications? Please
advise...

Thank you in advance...!

[Matt]

Spotlight from Quest (also part of Quest Central) has been a useful
product for me in the past, for displaying an overview of performance
metrics on SQL Server on a single screen.

I have also recently used the Performance Center for DBArtisan, and
find it fills a similar role. It seems to perform a little better in my
environment, placing a lower load on both the server and monitoring
client. It's interface is not as "fancy", but still displays a useful
performance overview in a single screen. I use DBArtisan for
administrative tasks, and since it is always open on my workstation,
having a monitoring tool integrated into my primary admin console is
very convenient.

IMO, both of these tools are for "spot checking", where you look at the
current performance statistics of the system, over a short duration
(minutes to hours). When you are trying to isolate processes or code
that are causing performance problems, they can be very useful. Other
tools are better suited for long term performance recording, or 24x7
monitoring and alerting.

[SQLDBA]

Thanks Matt,

I managed to get a demo on Spotlight and Foglight from Quest. As you
mentioned Spotlight has a very cool GUI but I need something that runs
24/7 and worns me if there are any issues with any of the SQL servers
and also wants to know real time statistics as well.

I couldnt download Performance center from their website but requested
for a demo. Since you have used both, I would really appreciate if you
can give me some sort of comparison and recomend whats good or bad
about each application....

Thanks again for your input...

[Matt]

Neither Spotlight or DBArtisan Performance Monitor is a 24x7 tool. They
are both hosted within a client side GUI, and only record activity when
active. I consider them "spot checking" tools. I have found that while
DBArtisan is not as visually appealing as Spotlight, in my limited
testing it presented it's results in a more timely fashion, with a
lower load on the SQL Server. On slower network connections, I found
that Spotlight could take several minutes to begin presenting
performance metrics, and in certain cases, I lost the opportunity to
view a resource hogging process before it completed. Additionally, if
you are a DBArtisan user, their Performance Monitor add-in is often
close at hand.

In the end, these are very similar products, and I would be satisfied
with either. Both Quest and Embarcadero have provided good support to
me in the past.

Quest's Foglight product has a plugin for SQL Server. I have little
expeience with this tool, but I understand it is the type of product
that has a server side collection agent, that provides for 24x7 data
collection. If you need a tool to record historical performance
information, this might be something worth looking into.

[LVF]

SQLDBA wrote:

I am in the process of evaluating some SQL Performance Monitoring /DBA tool to purchase (For SQL Server 2000). I have the following list of
software that I came across and have to finalize which one to recomend for purchase by my company.

Quest Central® for SQL Server
Performance Center by Embarcadero (dbartisan)
Performance analysis by BMC Software solutions
SQL Server Management by netIQ

I would greatly appreciate if anyone can give me a comparison/ any
suggestions on the above mentioned applications... !

Has anyone used/currently using any of these applications? Please
advise...

Thank you in advance...!

You have three options for 24x7 monitoring:

1.) Quest Foglight
2.) Embarcadero Performance Center
3.) BMC Patrol

Embarcadero's tool is a bad choice, it is riddled with bugs and it does
not monitor two important metrics: 1.) File System Capacity, 2.) Error
Log Updates, at least with no intelligence.

Quest Foglight is an outstanding tool with good reporting capabilities,
however it is very expensive.

By far the best tool you can use for 24x7 monitoring is BMC Patrol with
the SQL KM. One nice thing about BMC is that they just came out with
BMC Patrol Express, it is a light weight version of their product and
if you so desire they can host the entire operation in their data
center at a cost of about $34/cpu/month. You need only download the
agent from their website and away you go. This tool can be configured
to page out, email, etc.
L

[Matt]

I realize now I was commenting on the wrong product. I was referring to
the Performance Analyst plugin to DBArtisan, not the standalone
Performance Center product. If you are looking for a 24x7 monitoring
tool, none of the options I mentioned are applicable.

[Bill]

SQLDBA wrote:

I am in the process of evaluating some SQL Performance Monitoring /DBA tool to purchase (For SQL Server 2000). I have the following list of
software that I came across and have to finalize which one to recomend for purchase by my company.

Quest Central® for SQL Server
Performance Center by Embarcadero (dbartisan)
Performance analysis by BMC Software solutions
SQL Server Management by netIQ

I would greatly appreciate if anyone can give me a comparison/ any
suggestions on the above mentioned applications... !

Has anyone used/currently using any of these applications? Please
advise...

Thank you in advance...!

Quest Central for SQL Server is an excellent product! It collects wait
events for SQL transactions (CPU time, I/O time, Latch, Lock, OS wait
events) it does this through a non-intrusive host based collection
agent. Sampling rates are up to 20 times per second or a stated CPU
utilization limit (such as 3%) which can be adjusted by the user.

QC provides a GUI that enables the DBA to look at performance data for
SQL transactions that have occurred recently, or historical data going
back many months.

The DBA can look at each SQL transaction and get to the root cause of
performance problems. For each transaction, the GUI displays, the SQL
Syntax, key wait events, the SQL access plan, locks held and those
waiting for, I/O wait and other waits, number of executions, and OS
Wait event. QC also supports Server Side Cursors and collects
performance statistics related to this.

The DBA can look at performance data from several prespectives
including: by SQL statement, by DB User, sorting display by key wait
events such as CPU time, I/O time, etc...

QC for SQL Server also includes a long term repository for historical
performance data with a rich set of reports to help the DBA understand
historical trends in performance of SQL transactions.

Common useages for QC for SQL Server include:

Diagnose the root cause of performance problems;

Tune SQL by understanding resource utilization for each SQL statement;

Capacity planning - understanding resource utilization for each SQL
statement execution.
Bill

[Dave]

Check out I3 from Veritas Software, in particular the InDepth for SQL Server
component. It does 24x7 monitoring with a historical data store, alerting via
several methods (email, snmp, messages), etc. It has a web-based gui so there
is no client s/w to install (so you can monitor from anywhere).

Dave

Also sprach "SQLDBA" <pg*****@gmail. com> :

:Thanks Matt,
:
:I managed to get a demo on Spotlight and Foglight from Quest. As you
:mentioned Spotlight has a very cool GUI but I need something that runs
:24/7 and worns me if there are any issues with any of the SQL servers
:and also wants to know real time statistics as well.
:
:I couldnt download Performance center from their website but requested
:for a demo. Since you have used both, I would really appreciate if you
:can give me some sort of comparison and recomend whats good or bad
:about each application....
:
:Thanks again for your input...