Spotlight vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Monitor

Spotlight is great when you need a tool to give a quick look at a SQL server as a whole. It gives you the ability to see a lot of things, which can be vital in diagnosing problems or identifying stressors. Less great is the open-end of some of the diagnoses it makes, and things it identifies as "problems" (unless you love users coming to you and saying something like "Spotlight says there's a problem with our page latch!!!").

Incentivized

Computing resources consumed by the DB instance, DPA queries & wait time, deadlock conditions, virtual infrastructure resources. The addition of NPM & DPA integration as well as cross-correlation in the identification of issues with the network or server or DB is all stupid-proof. Monitoring is more than just health and resource consumption, it's also performance. DB performance analysis is key to maintaining healthy DB instances.

Incentivized

• I love the main page that provides a color code list of all the servers so I know very quickly where to focus my attention first.
• I love how easy it is to configure new notifications.
• I love how easy it is to configure a new server to monitor.

Incentivized

• Simple to use and very easy to learn.
• The execution engines run in parallel, can execute any syntax or query.
• DPN can run all queries for both Oracle and SQL with no additional support.

Incentivized

• Have not found any issues at this point.

Incentivized

• The Reporting feature currently doesn't allow customization.

Incentivized

Though our support needs have been minimal, we have gotten good responses when we have needed it.

Incentivized

I think Dell is better with its dashboard and ease of use, but SQL Sentry is better at customization. We used Spotlight at my previous company, and SQLSentry at my current company.

Incentivized

DPM is less expensive and more feature-rich. Also, Oracle tech support is garbage, unless you can afford to spend a day getting assistance.

Incentivized

• We have not encountered any issues and continue to keep Spotlight's version current.
• Very simple to set up and add databases. The only thing that has to happen to the database is that a user ID needs to exist.

Incentivized

• What is the cost of a downed DB instance? That's your ROI. DPM lets you see issues before they become critical.

Incentivized