SolarWinds SQL Sentry - Knowledge is Power
What do you like best about the product?
- Clear easy to navigate GUI
- Quick to gain insights for the internals of SQL or your OS
- Love the Top SQL view and ability to drill down
- Out of the box reports but can also create your own by querying the underlying captured data
- Great product support and support teams (good engagement)
- And the holy grail of why we use such a tool...Historical views. We can go back to when an issue was occuring to see what was happening in the system. A real lifesaver and the original reason for purchasing the product some 8 years ago.
-Also has a web client that makes easy to give non-administrators access to handy features
What do you dislike about the product?
There is not a lot we don't like but certainly we always have issues with deploying updates, it never seems to go smoothly. But support do assist quickly and they do listen to feedback and are working on improvements in this area.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SQL Sentry allows us to have a historical picture of the performance of our Database estate. It allows us to deep dive into performance issues quickly bith when they are happening or if we need to retrospectively look at something that happened overnight or the previous date or previous month even.
We can baseline to see when our server is veering from the norm. We can empower application owners to have better insight with what is happening when code changes are deployed.
It saves a lot of time when investigating performance issues. But it is also good at alerting, with the ability to set out of the box alerts or custom ranges of alerts.
Fantastic Database Analysis tool
What do you like best about the product?
DPA is absolutely essential for any business using SQL Servers.
It has tools that help you quickly determine the root cause of issues of what happened at a certain time as it keeps a history.
It features a great alert system as well for when something is going wrong.
We often use it to analyze over 60 production databases.
It can assist in providing possible solutions on indexes for some problematic queries.
All of the above is easy to use and quick to get.
Customer support is fantastic and their personnel has only been helpful when I needed them.
What do you dislike about the product?
It is not useful to analyze an immediate occurring problem as you have to wait a bit till the data is logged and displayed.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
When we see delays or blocking our applications we can quickly go to DPA and see what is going on.
We can the analyse the current queries and see if there are Wait delays and their root cause, or resource utilization.
Good Monitoring tool for database issues
What do you like best about the product?
Live blocking is helpful. can select blocks of time to see issues
What do you dislike about the product?
It shows me idle blockers- not helpful and does not capture the Query execution times
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
performance issues, It helps us to fix the issue
Know what's going on at a glance.
What do you like best about the product?
My favorite is bechmarks from previous period or previous day to see if current load is out of the norm.
What do you dislike about the product?
Its a bit intemidating. At first glance there is alot to take in which can be daunting.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Tracking down resource hogs. Identifying queries that needs review.
Valuable for DB Performance Analysis and Troubleshooting
What do you like best about the product?
Index Recommendation, Index Usage, Fragmentation and Find SQL Feature
What do you dislike about the product?
I would only recommend to add Disk Usage feature as well
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SQL Tuning, Index Usage, Find SQL and there are number of factors for which i use DPA
Comprehensive Monitoring with Room for Improvement
What do you like best about the product?
SQL Sentry is a robust monitoring tool, offering in-depth insights into database performance and health. Its ability to provide real-time data and detailed analytics ensures that administrators can stay ahead of potential issues, making proactive decisions to maintain optimal database performance. The user interface is intuitive, and the range of metrics available is excellent. This tool has undoubtedly enhanced our database management capabilities, allowing for more informed decision-making.
What do you dislike about the product?
While SQL Sentry excels in monitoring capabilities, it is not without its flaws. The most noticeable drawback is the latency experienced within the application. This lag can sometimes hinder real-time troubleshooting, especially during critical moments when swift action is required. Additionally, unlike some of its competitors, SQL Sentry falls short in offering predictive space and SQL security patch monitoring features.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As a Database Administrator, SolarWinds SQL Sentry has been instrumental in enhancing my database management capabilities. It offers real-time insights into database performance, enabling swift identification and rectification of bottlenecks and long-running queries. The proactive alerting system is invaluable, notifying me of potential issues before they escalate, while the historical data analysis aids in recognizing patterns for long-term improvements. Additionally, the deadlock visualization feature simplifies the process of pinpointing and resolving deadlocks. Though it lacks some predictive tools, its storage usage data is crucial for capacity planning. The customizable dashboards streamline my daily tasks, ensuring our databases run efficiently and reducing disruptions, ultimately allowing me to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Great tool - adds value to our monitoring
What do you like best about the product?
ease of use, email alerts are very helpful
What do you dislike about the product?
support is not what it was before solar winds purchase
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
server issues, db contention
Great tool for Database Optimization
What do you like best about the product?
Provides deep insights into our databases, allowing us to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, optimize queries, and enhance overall database efficiency.
What do you dislike about the product?
Licensing per server is a bit cumbersome.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Offers a robust query performance tuning feature. It helps us identify slow-running queries, suggests optimizations, and provides detailed execution plans.
Administration point of view
What do you like best about the product?
What I like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that it's a powerful tool that lets me advise customers about performance, and it also gives a lot of supporting information
What do you dislike about the product?
It should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Helps us identify issues we cannot see manually
Excels in identifying various database performance issues, including long-running queries, wait times, deadlocks, and other performance-related issues.
What is our primary use case?
The primary use cases involve identifying database performance issues, such as long-running queries, wait times, deadlocks, and other read-and-write performance-related issues.
Long-running queries are particularly common, and customers find the tool useful for pinpointing such issues.
How has it helped my organization?
DPA has been helpful in providing recommendations to improve DB performance. The Table tuning advisories, causes for long-running queries, reasons for wait-times & deadlocks have helped tune the databases to give optimal performance.
What is most valuable?
Index Advisories, Query Advisories & Table Advisories are the most valuable features of DPA. They provide valuable insights into the issues that cause performance degradation on our databases. Identifying indexation issues, long running queries & tuning tables.
What needs improvement?
There's room for improvement on the dashboarding side. Specifically, the health dashboard of the database instances. Some of my customers deal with a large number of monitored database instances.
It would be beneficial if they could have a single dashboard for instances, for example, from number one to thirty. This way, I could monitor all these 30 instances and quickly identify any performance issues on any of them. The dashboarding capability definitely needs improvement.
In future releases, there should be custom reports and dashboards are crucial. Not everyone needs to see the same page every time. For example, if I'm interested in MYSQL databases, I should have a view that focuses only on MYSQL databases. Customization like this, where users can tailor their dashboards to specific needs, is essential for improving the product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for more than 2 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a pretty stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. In my current environment, I haven't faced challenges in adding more instances for monitoring.
The solution is usually highly recommended for larger enterprises. Large companies often face challenges with database administrators struggling to manage a large number of database instances. So, they could benefit from using this product.
For smaller setups, a tool may still be valuable, especially if they have a few database instances to monitor. They might manage with native tools like MSSQL Management Studio, which can provide indications if not detailed, performance statistics. However, the significant benefit of this tool is realized more by larger organizations
How are customer service and support?
The initial support (Level 1) might struggle with DPA issues, but escalated cases receive proper support. There is room for improvement in Level 1 support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We exclusively work with SolarWinds for database monitoring.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The best part is that SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) can be used as a standalone tool or integrated seamlessly with other SolarWinds tools. For instance, it can integrate with server and application monitoring.
DPA is a specialized tool for databases, while server and application monitoring is a generic tool for all applications, including databases
What about the implementation team?
We mainly deploy the SolarWinds stack for our customers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances.
Maintenance support is included for the first year, and subsequent years require payment for software and subscriptions.
What other advice do I have?
I would suggest carefully charting out critical database instances and figuring out if the user is facing application slowness issues. If yes, they should first use simple server and application monitoring to determine whether the issues lie outside the database or within. It could be an underlying storage, server, or network-related problem.
To pinpoint network or server-related issues it can get complex. There could be physical server issues, virtual server issues, host layer problems, or underlying storage or SAN environment concerns, if they have any.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The areas where it currently lags are in reporting and dashboarding. The reports and dashboards are somewhat static, and we cannot create custom dashboards for specific customer needs.
