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SQL Sentry Review
Updated March 15, 2019

SQL Sentry Review

Chris Taylor | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds SQL Sentry

I work as a consultant and this tool is used by my clients to monitor production (dev/test in some cases) servers. Monitoring and alerting (PA and EM) is used. Fragmentation manager etc., is handled via other scripts.
  • Easy to set up and navigate.
  • Provides some very important/useful metrics for performance monitoring.
  • Custom conditions is an excellent addition to the product.
  • I understand that the product requires a certain level of knowledge to interpret the results but I believe tooltips on certain areas could be useful for companies that do not have this knowledge but would like to have their systems monitored and reviewed.
For me it is it's simplicity. For example, highlight a spike in CPU, right click and view top SQL!!!! Awesome!!!
I know virtualisation monitoring is available with future work in the pipeline but at present this is an area that I would like to see improved.

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings

SQL Performance Monitoring
7.4
Performance dashboard
9
Intelligent alerting
8
Top SQL
8
Historical trend data
7
Virtualization support
5

Performance Optimization

  • Easy analysis of performance issues meaning a lot of time is saved to work on other tasks
Would only get a 10 from me if there was someone say next to me and fixed the issue there n then. This is unrealistic so I can't give a 10.

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Business Processes

  • Performance monitoring
  • Alerting
  • Storage forecasting
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
When I first bought sql Sentry over 10yrs ago I was doing POCs with various tools and this one stood out for ease of use. See a spike in cpu, right click and you know instantly what was running at the time

Using SolarWinds SQL Sentry

1 - We're a consultancy and don't actively use sentryone on a daily basis. Only as and when it clients require us to review something on it.
1 - From our experience, sqlsentry can be used from junior to very senior sql server users. The more you know about sql server the more you'll get from the product
  • Data taken from the database to calculate "a magic number" which is an arbitrary figure to give us an easy indication as to how performance had been over the last week, day, hour etc
  • It's like the server health but a bit more in depth analysis (at the query level) is done to calculate
  • PowerBI performance dashboards
Is the best performance monitoring tool there is

Evaluating SolarWinds SQL Sentry and Competitors

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Implementation

No, very simple prices to install and setup. Advisory Conditions can be cumbersome but this is an advanced feature and sometimes only for monitoring specific issues
  • Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal
  • None

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
Not Sure
Depends on the client and their needs
I know they guys based in England so any questions I have guess to them. If they can't answer straight away which is unlikely then a support request is raised

Using SolarWinds SQL Sentry

The main features I use are great but Advisory Conditions can be confusing if not used everyday
ProsCons
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 is legendary. Everything you need (90% of the time) is there right in front of you.
  • I sometimes find the Advisory Conditions difficult to get my head around
Yes, but I don't use it