SQL Sentry Performance Advisor Review
February 17, 2016

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor Review

Leonardo Velez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SQL Sentry Performance Advisor

Because we provide internal and external to different clients (6000 clients); the idea was to centralize the monitoring to one dedicated server, receive the alerts and take actions. Even thought there was already one in place; having a SQL dedicated one makes the DBA task way more easy.

People used to complained a lot of the issues of the solutions we provide was due to the SQL; after SQL Sentry I can show the stats and numbers speaks by themself - they were mostly code issues.

Pros

  • Saving the SQL stats and showing them in an easy and graphical manner
  • I can easily do a report on SQL stats
  • I can actually see what user or application caused deadlocks or is blocking the DB

Cons

  • From version to version SQL Sentry changes the way it collects data; that can cause some misreadings or incorrect stats.
  • When you first see the stats from Performance Advisor you need to expend a lot of time until you have an idea of what they mean.
  • The documentation is not easy to understand.
  • TOAD, IDERA and QBS
It is easy to install; not intrusive and most importantly does not try to replace the SQL Management Studio, it works with it.
If you want a centralized monitoring tool, SQL Sentry Performance Advisor is one of the best choices; it does not try to replace the SSMS but it works with it. Other tools want to do everything and they excel in none. SQL Sentry actually excels in collecting the stats from the SQL environment.

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings

Performance dashboard
10
Intelligent alerting
9
Top SQL
8
Historical trend data
10
Virtualization support
8

Comments

  • Rachel Siragusa | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Hello Leonardo, We are glad to hear that our product has been helpful to you and our colleagues. One of our main goals is to make the jobs, and inherently the lives, of our users even just a little easier. I wanted to mention the capability to set the default time span for Performance Advisor (Tools > User Preferences > Performance Advisor tab > Default time span for history mode). You can set the default time frame to something more suitable to your preference, so that you do not have to always expand the time frame every time you open up Performance Advisor. In addition, on the same preferences page, you can set History mode to the default view when opening up Performance Advisor. This can eliminate having to switch to it every time Performance Advisor is opened up. I also wanted to let you know we are working to update our documentation. SQL Sentry has gone through extensive changes, including exponential growth in functionality and feature sets over the last 2 years or so. As these changes begin to level out, we can begin to provide helpful and accurate documentation. We have also been making a great effort to provide additional resources to our customers to make learning and using SQL Sentry as easy as possible. Some examples of these resources are listed below: -We have a new demo scheduling site. You can sign up for a time that best fits your schedule to have a demo with our experienced and knowledgeable Sales Engineers. These demos provide a great showcase of feature sets, as well as provide a platform for any questions you might have. (http://www.meetme.so/SQLSentrySEGroup). -We now provide an On-Boarding process to new users. This process includes documentation listing crucial resources and information. In addition, we will make sure the initial set up of SQL Sentry goes smoothly and is working as expected, while providing an overview of navigating the product and features. -The SQL Sentry TV site provides some videos demonstrating some of SQL Sentry’s features, as well as general SQL Server topics. (http://sqlsentry.tv/ ) -The SQL Sentry blog site also has great posts on product features and SQL Server topics in general. (http://blogs.sqlsentry.com/ ) (Ex: http://blogs.sqlsentry.com/greggonzalez/sql-sentry-v8-intelligent-alerting-redefined/ ) -We are also expanding our SQL Sentry Essentials training. Currently this is a whole course, but we have plans to itemize the modules, allowing you to take only the modules that best fit your needs. (http://www.sqlsentry.com/pro-services/essentials ) Thank you for taking the time to review SQL Sentry, and for being a valued SQL Sentry customer.

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