SentryOne Product Review
Updated April 28, 2020
SentryOne Product Review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SQL Sentry
My team uses SentryOne to monitor our production SQL environment. They will use it as a first tool to verify system health when pulled into production issues. If SQL is determined to be the bottleneck in process, we'll use the information SentryOne provides to pinpoint the problem code and pass the information onto developers for fine tuning. In our development environment, our developers also have the client tools to monitor their processes. If we had licenses available for the Dev/Test servers, then we could fine tune them before releasing code to production. This is limited because we only have a few licenses to spare for Dev/Test.
- It has an easy to use interface/dashboard; it doesn't require a lot training or reading to get information. Most of the key counters are on the main dashboard and the rest of the data you're looking for is usually just a tab away.
- Historical information: By the time I get the call, the system is usually back to normal, so having the ability to look back in time and pinpoint when problems started is essential for us when determining the root cause of problems.
- One tool: Not only can it determine what is causing the issue, SentryOne also captures the detail and plans for code being executed. It allow me to drill into the plans and get down to the nitty gritty code all within one interface. No need to buy additional tools or load into Management Studio to get more details.
- Tuning advice: With all the graphs and data available, it's not always easy to determine the best thing to do. I'd like to see SentryOne provide some best practice analysis based on the historical information collected for the server being looked at.
- They could add help tips or links to help documents, when you select a graph on the dashboard. Inexperienced users tend to put blinders on and focus on one thing when they see a high counter or something out of the ordinary. It would be very useful to include a link that provides underlying help. The link would provide an explanation of the counter in detail and offer possible explanations as to why the counter is off.
With 100+ production servers to monitor, cost was the main reason we were able to switch from Idera to SentryOne. Both tools had comparable features but I was able to get more from SentryOne becasue sales reps were willing to work with us and make it a more cost effective solution.
SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings
Using SQL Sentry
6510 - DBA team supports the infrastructure database platform and utilizes SQL Sentry to monitor the production SQL environment to proactively tune servers being monitored and will troubleshoot production issues when they arise. The App\Dev team builds in-house SQL ETL processes and uses SQL Sentry to performance tune their processes.
2 - My L3 Database Administrator handles the main installation and configuration of SQL Sentry. We run mainly with out-of-box features which don't take a lot of skills to implement. Where I see a higher level of skill needed is configuring and setting up custom alerts where you need a better understanding of events being triggered an how to resolve them when they're triggered.
- Troubleshooting performance issues that are currently occurring on a server
- Identifying slow processes and drilling into cached query planned to find underlying issue with code being executed.
- Right sizing SQL servers, with 100+ production SQL servers you cannot always cookie cutter servers with a single configuration.
- Track and show performance over time.
- Gives us definite proof that hardware isn't always the issue when performance is tanking.
- Provides an educational experience for developers to see how their code is interacting with the hardware.
- Subsidizes our SCOM alerting with custom alerts we cannot do in SCOM
- Incorporate SQL Sentry into our QA process to do a better analysis on performance impact prior to code being released to production.
- Better capacity planning and insight to hardware provisioning in our VM environment.
- Reduction of P1 events due to better visibility of what's running and causing the issues. Also reducing downtime when issues do arise.
- Reduced hardware costs - right-sizing VM's based on running loads vs. specualtion
- Better customer experience by finding inefficiencies in underlying code that's been enhanced and now performing better.
Evaluating SQL Sentry and Competitors
Yes - Replaced IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager. Our environment was growing at a steady pace and the cost to procure additional licensing wasn't in the budget so we started looking for alternative products. SQL Sentry provided us the same features at a substantially lower cost. We were also burnt by IDERA's maintenance renewal process when we tried to terminate our contract before renewal date and we were told we didn't give enough advanced notice according to license agreement and were forced to renew.
- Price
- Product Features
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
The one thing that lead me to SQL Sentry was when I met the sales team at a PASS conference. They listened to my concerns and asked me what our main issues we were trying to resolve. They then proceeded to walk me through their product and show me how I could resolve all the issues I outlined in SQL Sentry. It started a relationship between the sale team and myself that I still interact with today, 5+ years later.
Since I already had a tool to compare against that I was trying to replace and was familiar with other monitoring tools, I might have requested a trial version prior to meeting sales team to address more specific requirements.
Using SQL Sentry
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | Lots to learn |
- Main performance dashboard provide a majority of details at your fingertips
- pinpointing issues, especially events that have happened in the past
- zooming in to get more specific details
- interpreting performance counters and how they might be impacted by another counter
- Some graphs show multiple counters which can skew the graphs which may hide an issue or point you to a false positive because your reacting a big spike or something.
- Not always able to capture a query plan for a problem piece of code.
Yes, but I don't use it