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SolarWinds SQL Sentry

SolarWinds SQL Sentry

Overview

What is SolarWinds SQL Sentry?

SolarWinds SQL Sentry is designed to help data professionals optimize SQL Server database performance in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. SQL Sentry delivers metrics to help users find and fix database performance problems and provides scalability, boasting demonstrated success monitoring 800+ SQL Server…

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Recent Reviews

SentryOne review

8 out of 10
November 10, 2021
Incentivized
We use it to monitor our critical SQL server cluster and it is currently just used by the DBAs. It allows us to monitor in real time but …
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SQL Sentry Review

10 out of 10
June 25, 2020
We use SQL Sentry to monitor and alert on our SQL Server Environment. It helps us troubleshoot live issues as they occur using the …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 5 features
  • Performance dashboard (102)
    9.2
    92%
  • Top SQL (102)
    8.6
    86%
  • Historical trend data (100)
    8.6
    86%
  • Intelligent alerting (96)
    7.9
    79%
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Pricing

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Plan Explorer (SQL Server Query Tuning)

$0

On Premise
Free

SQL Sentry for Azure SQL Database

$161

On Premise
Per year per database (annual subscription)

SQL Sentry

1,450

On Premise
Per year per instance (annual subscription)

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.sqlsentry.com/portal/store

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

SQL Sentry - Live Demo

YouTube
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Features

SQL Performance Monitoring

SQL Performance Monitoring software is designed to monitor the database at all times

8.4
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is SolarWinds SQL Sentry?

SolarWinds SQL Sentry is designed to help data professionals optimize SQL Server database performance in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. SQL Sentry delivers metrics to help users find and fix database performance problems and provides scalability, boasting demonstrated success monitoring 800+ SQL Server instances with one monitoring database.

With SQL Sentry, the user can monitor:

  • SQL Server
  • Azure SQL Database
  • SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
  • SQL Server on Hyper-V or VMware VMs (including host)
  • SQL Server on Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
  • SQL Server on Amazon RDS
  • SQL Server on Amazon EC2
  • SQL Server on Linux

Although a SQL Sentry license can be used to monitor Azure SQL Database in a hybrid environment, dedicated licensing is available for large Azure SQL Database environments.

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Features

SQL Performance Monitoring Features

  • Supported: Performance dashboard
  • Supported: Intelligent alerting
  • Supported: Top SQL
  • Supported: Historical trend data
  • Supported: Virtualization support

Additional Features

  • Supported: Query plan analysis
  • Supported: Blocking and deadlock analysis
  • Supported: Event Calendar
  • Supported: Advisory Conditions
  • Supported: AlwaysOn Availability Groups monitoring
  • Supported: Index analysis
  • Supported: Storage Forecasting
  • Supported: SQL Sentry Portal (installed SQL Sentry web interface)
  • Supported: Environment Health Overview
  • Supported: Tempdb analysis
  • Supported: SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) monitoring

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Screenshots

Screenshot of SQL Sentry DeadlocksScreenshot of SQL Sentry Top SQL

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Integrations

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Downloadables

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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(162)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-1 of 1)
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May 01, 2020

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor

Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Monitor production and development instances for benchmarking, baselining and troubleshooting. we shared access with devs, dbas and ops team to give full insight to the sql server performance. gave everyone a single view of issues and way to share issues or concerns across all teams. with enough rbac controls to keep things simple and secure
Pros and Cons
  • In-depth monitoring
  • Vast array of customisation
  • support
  • Documentation of customization
  • Configuration
  • explain what is being monitored and default alert values
Likelihood to Recommend
Great for indepth monitoring where you can plug in 3rd party tool and know you are gathering everything needed to troubleshoot issues. If you dont have a datbase administrator, the amount of details gathered may be to large and set you off down the wrong path / give you red herrings for some issues
SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings
SQL Performance Monitoring (5)
72%
7.2
Performance dashboard
80%
8.0
Intelligent alerting
50%
5.0
Top SQL
70%
7.0
Historical trend data
90%
9.0
Virtualization support
70%
7.0
Alternatives Considered
sql sentry is more expensive that some of its other competitors (red gate sql monitor for example) but you do get more for money. if you have experianced database adminstrators and database developers you will certainly get value for what SQL sentry gives you. but if you are diverse team (ie not just a dba) or just learning it may give to much information that can flood you
Other Software Used
Return on Investment
  • shared knowledge
  • indepth monitoring
  • cusotmization
Support Rating
9
Great support from the team both pre and post purchase
Business Processes Supported
  • alerting of sql server performance issues
  • review history of sql server performance
  • large collection of logs collected against sql server to give an overview of current or passed events
Key Differentiators
  • Product Features
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
Users and Roles
5
dba/dev/ops
Support Headcount Required
3
dba/dev/ops
Innovative Uses
  • check install is following best practices
  • allows all teams to share and review the same performance issues
Future Planned Uses
  • covering more environments
Likelihood to Renew
5
depending on the amount of time you have to review and update code based on the tool. if you are looking for low hanging fruit to fix this may be overkill, if you looking to run a business critical app that you need to fine tune to as much as your dev/dba can this is a good option
Products Replaced
No
Evaluation Lessons Learned
if you could run multiple tools against a similar workload with known issues that would help you highlight the differences in each tool and show if one tool is easier to you than other.
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Implemented in-house
Implementation Phases
No
Change Management Lessons
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
Implementation Issues
  • customized configuration
  • changing default settings
  • alerting
Implementation Rating
8
got offered free support for one of the sql sentry experts to come and review our workloads was a nice extra touch to see how to performance tune using there tooling
Training Types Used
  • in-person training
In-Person Training
8
sql sentry expert came onsight to review the performance of installation and gave us a good insight to using the tool
Ease of SolarWinds SQL Sentry Training
i would definitly suggest asking for a support person to come and review your performance, look at any training they have to help you with getting the tool up and running to its full functionality
Product Configurability
7
customization of monitoring, alert config toke time and effort but are worth it in the end
Configuration Lessons
get support with from sql sentry after you have installed it and get a review if possible
Extensibility and Customization
Some - we have added small pieces of custom code
not as easy as redgate sql monitor
Additional Customization Considerations
wealth of options are available both out the box and via your own customization.
Premium Support
No
Bug Resolution
No
Exceptional Examples of SolarWinds SQL Sentry Support
Excellent initial support, offering several web conferences and remote support to help configure and analyse the data captured
Easy Tasks
  • Drill down and up from event manager to top sql,
Difficult Tasks
  • Customized events,
Usability
9
Great tool, captures lots of metrics to help diagnose and monitor performance
Scalability
7
Reliability and Availability
7
Performance
7
Systems Integrated With
  • email
easy to configure to get alerting
Future Integration Plans
  • slack
Types of Integration
  • File import/export
Ease of Integration
5
Integration Lessons Learned
contact support if you cant do what you want it do, they are friendly and willing to help
Pre-Sale Experience
8
Post-Sale Experience
8
Key Negotiation Points
size of our estate
Dealing with SolarWinds
offered all the help support i requested
Upgrade Process
No
Upgrade Benefits
  • new features for new versions of sql server
Anticipated Benefits from Future Upgrades
  • new features for new sql server featueres
Migrating Between Editions
No
Future Edition Upgrade Plans
No
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