1. Home
  2. SQL Server Performance Monitoring Tools
  3. SolarWinds SQL Sentry Reviews
  4. User Review of SolarWinds SQL Sentry
SQL Sentry - Best of Breed
Updated May 01, 2020

SQL Sentry - Best of Breed

Derek Knutsen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SQL Sentry

Currently, we use SQL Sentry to monitor database performance and debug issues as they arise. I open up the dashboard for our production environment at the start of each day. We also use it to run our complicated weekly job that spans four servers. This job calls one server and then calls back to the originating server.
  • The unique offering is the graphical chaining of jobs. This is especially important when the job chain spans servers.
  • The graphs in the dashboard gives easy to follow and quick information as to the status of the database system.
  • The timeline of the job execution has been handy when seeing how long a job has executed or when a scheduled job could cause conflicts.
  • I wish there was a better way to determine what queries are running at a given time. This could be a resource problem, but I found myself going to profiler a lot.
  • Configuration of alerts is not intuitive. I want to create an alert for low disk space, but the interface was too obtuse.
  • Navigation is also not intuitive. You have to fumble around the tree structure to get to things like the job timeline.
Redgate is what we historically used. It is a great simple tool. However, with our complex environment, we needed something more robust. I will miss the multiple baseline graph overlays that I have only seen in Redgate.
Idera was a very close contender. We had it installed and running against our production environment. The suite of tools is very robust. But their monitoring tool hit our CPU. Their engineers and we were never able to identify the cause of the issue.
SQL Sentry is good for overall monitoring and job configuration. There are capabilities for deep-dive troubleshooting. However, it is highly recommended to get training. Be prepared for a steep learning curve on how to get the system configured the way you want it. But, it is worth it. Do not expect this to be an all in one solution. This will not take care of backups.

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings

SQL Performance Monitoring
7.4
Performance dashboard
10
Intelligent alerting
7
Top SQL
6
Historical trend data
9
Virtualization support
5

Using SQL Sentry

4 - They are database specialist and two technical managers.
1 - I am the database administrator who has been to conference sessions with SentryOne. I have also had personalized training with the product.
  • Performance problem indication
  • Performance tuning
  • AlwaysOn monitoring
  • Job synchronization
  • None
  • Use with cloud databases
  • Using the portal for mobile access
  • Far faster identification of issues
  • Visibility into our databases
  • Tracking performance improvements
  • Easily managing jobs
It is the reason why I have been able to manage our environment. The tools it provides has prevented and mitigated problems we have had.

Evaluating SQL Sentry and Competitors

Yes - Redgate SQL Server monitoring
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
The dashboard and quality of reporting was the initial selling point. Other features like job chains followed.
We evaluated Idera in production, which killed the system. I would test in a lower environment first.