AppDynamics vs SQL Sentry

AppDynamics

We had slowness, but didn't know where. We quickly would find out if it was the network, database, app server, webserver, or otherwise. They don't like me saying this, but it's a great "finger-pointer".

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Non-Profit Organization Management Company, 501-1000 employees

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SQL Sentry

It’s great for a DBA to have a tool like SentryOne. To be able to troubleshoot our production environment and come up with a root cause to a performance issue in very little time is awesome. Being able to drill into an instance and see what happened yesterday when a user walks up to our desk and tells us the instance was slow yesterday and they want to know what was going on.

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Louis Fritz

Computer Software, 501-1000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

AppDynamics

8.3

SQL Sentry

—

Application monitoring

9.3

—

Database monitoring

7.3

—

Threshold alerts

8.9

—

Predictive capabilities

7.4

—

Application performance management console

8.3

—

Collaboration tools

8.4

—

AppDynamics

—

SQL Sentry

8.9

Performance dashboard

—

9.0

Intelligent alerting

—

9.4

Top SQL

—

9.9

Historical trend data

—

8.1

Virtualization support

—

8.1

Pros

AppDynamics provides an excellent overview of all the interactions between all of your various applications, providing a high-level view of the overall health of the whole application and any interactions or elements that are unhealthy can be seen from here.
AppDynamics focusses on Business Transactions, rather than overall application or server performance, meaning you can quickly see if one part of the system is not working as it should, meaning production issues are shown clearly as isolated problems (if they are) rather than overall application health problems.
AppDynamics provides excellent functionality with regards to tracing coding exceptions - errors can easily be drilled down to the method or line of code that is problematic.
AppDynamics is hugely flexible allowing very fine grained configuration and customisation.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Alerting is very flexible and configurable to our needs
Linking alerting into third party alerting tools via PowerShell was easy
Collecting and rolling up SQL statements make it much easier to troubleshoot performance problems
Drilling into PLE and what’s happening when it drops out
Ease of drilling into time-frame to figure out what was the issue at that time
Being able to query the SentryOne database for management reports is awesome (Deadlocks and Blocking)

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Louis Fritz

Computer Software, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

The initial set up for some parts of the features could be better documented.

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Adam Rooney

Developer

M and M DirectRetail, 501-1000 employees

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It would be nice if the reports can be interactive like drill down, clickable content, etc.
Navigation could improve and become more intuitive.
Calendar of events could also improve - wish the date and time range could be specified instead of just by day or interval.

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Jun Tang

Database Administrator

J. Spargo & AssociatesEvents Services, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

We are a reseller of appdynamics

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Verified User

Account Manager in Sales

Computer Networking Company, 11-50 employees

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SQL Sentry9.9

Based on 3 answers

Using SQL Sentry has become part of our daily routine, and it has played a big role for us to understand our database activities and make our lives easier to analyse issues and provide resolutions.

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Jian Fu

Applications and BI Specialist

KathmanduRetail, 1001-5000 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

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SQL Sentry9.1

Based on 2 answers

Easy to use.
A complete tool to troubleshoot, monitor and fix SQL Server issues.

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Aron Feldman

Lead Engineer, Database Engineering | Data Sciences

TicketmasterEntertainment, 5001-10,000 employees

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Support

No score

No answers yet

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SQL Sentry10.0

Based on 3 answers

They usually respond within a few hours and will pull in needed resources without the need for me to escalate the issue. They take the initiative to follow up. They are open to suggestions for future enhancements and actually implement them. They give the impression they want to resolve your issues.

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Mark Lessard

Associate Director of Database Architecture

MerkleincMarketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees

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Implementation

No score

No answers yet

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SQL Sentry10.0

Based on 3 answers

Was suggested that we install the process monitors on a dev or qa database server, but we found it more useful to create an IT db server and put it there (along with a few other apps that we use for monitoring).

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Consumer Goods Company, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

After looking at a number of different alternatives to AppDynamics its error reporting seems to be the greatest out of the lot. It tracks anything imaginable and allows for the reporting as much as you want with as much information as you want.

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Adam Rooney

Developer

M and M DirectRetail, 501-1000 employees

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I selected this tool over SQL Monitor as it provided the all round package, it seemed to dig deeper into the server that SQL Monitor and the interface is so much nicer to use,

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Thomas Parsonage

Senior Data Architect

KFC UK & IrelandFood & Beverages, 10,001+ employees

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Return on Investment

It has had a positive impact because anytime there is an issue, we go to AppDynamics first to see what the root cause could have been.
We have been providing transaction snapshots to vendors for troubleshooting.
So far, I have had nothing but positive feedback from other team members on the functionality and how other team members are using the application.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Retail Company, 10,001+ employees

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