Item: SolarWinds SQL Sentry
Rating: 10
Author: Roland Gayatin

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is being used across the whole organization. It is being used to troubleshoot performance issues and to determine current pressure points. By knowing the pressure points, resources can be allocated appropriately.

Pros and Cons

The performance dashboard presentation gives a quick overview of the health of the SQL Instance.
Sentry products also include the Server OS performance metrics.
The problematic SQL code 'jumps' out when zooming in on a dashboard.

It seems to show only 3 weeks of data. Perhaps I'm not quite familiar YET with all the features.
Having it as an APP on the iPhone would be nice.

Alternatives Considered

Just watching SQLSentry.tv videos and how user friendly it was, made the decision less difficult. When Brent Ozar recommended it, the blurriness went away!

Other Software Used

Windows Server

Likelihood to Recommend

It tells you immediately where the pressure points are.

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Rachel Siragusa
(Vendor Representative) commented 8 years ago
Hello Roland, Thank you for rating SQL Sentry and for providing us with some valuable information. I would like to take this opportunity to respond to a few of your product related comments and concerns. First, Dashboard data is retained for up to 3 years by default. As for event source objects such as Top SQL, Blocking, Deadlocks, etc, these are retained for 15 days by default for Performance Advisor and 30 days by default for Event Manager. These retention settings can be changed through the monitoring service settings (Navigator pane > Monitoring Service > Settings > for Performance Advisor: Performance Monitor tab / for Event Manager: Event History Monitor tab > Purge History Older Than). Note, while you can certainly increase these retention settings, keep in mind that this will cause the SQL Sentry database to grow and potentially increase fragmentation. While the extent of this is dependent on several other factors, such as volume of activity, it is recommended that you do not set these settings too high. Also, we are in the process of improving web and mobile experiences for our users. We are always trying to provide the best functionality possible, and we feel that this will be a great addition to our software. We appreciate your input, and thank you for being a valued customer.

SQL Sentry Review

Overall Satisfaction with SQL Sentry Performance Advisor

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros and Cons

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Likelihood to Recommend

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Feature Ratings