SQL Sentry Performance Advisor for SQL Server

SQL Sentry

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor® is a revolutionary performance monitoring and tuning tool for Microsoft SQL Server. The software provides unparalleled insight, awareness and control over the true source of SQL Server performance issues.

Performance Advisor is packed with ground-breaking features that aren’t found in any other performance monitoring software, all designed with the singular goal of simplifying the process of optimizing your SQL Server performance. SQL Sentry Performance Advisor represents many years of research and development by the same team that brought you the innovative, award-winning SQL Sentry Event Manager.

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor utilizes the same management console and collection service as SQL Sentry Event Manager to provide integrated SQL Server performance monitoring, scheduling, and tuning. This provides a variety of benefits including a single unified installation package and setup process, streamlined configuration, and integrated features such as the ability to view performance events like blocking and deadlocks on the SQL Sentry calendar. Review the key features to find why Performance Advisor is the ultimate SQL Server performance software.

Key Features

SQL Server Performance Dashboard

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor Dashboard

Monitors and displays the most important Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL Server performance metrics side-by-side a single view, so you have the full picture at a glance.
Easily switch between real-time and historical modes to view performance metrics for any point in time. Go back days or even months to see exactly how your SQL Server performance has changed over time.
SQL Server resource utilization is integrated into the Windows network, CPU and memory charts, so you can monitor exactly how much of your server resources are being consumed by each SQL Server instance.
Wait Type analysis shows both high-level and detailed resource utilization, giving you an instant profile for the SQL Server so you can monitor exactly which resources or subsystems may be causing slowdowns. Wait types are grouped together into friendly categories, and meaningless wait types are eliminated.
SQL Sentry’s Quick Trace® provides an instant picture of exactly which processes and applications are consuming the most SQL Server resources, without having to open Profiler or Activity Monitor and manually correlate the results.
The Windows Process Activity viewer shows CPU, paging, and other I/O metrics on a server with a single-click, showing you exactly which Windows processes are consuming the most resources, without having to fire up PerfMon or remote into a machine simply to open Task Manager.
Network utilization is displayed by SQL Server instance and by network adapter.
Disk latency charts show you exactly how long reads and writes are taking for each disk and each database file, quickly highlighting disk bottlenecks.

Global Server Status View

SQL Sentry Performance Advisor: SQL Server Disk Activity

View key performance metrics for all Windows, SQL Server, and SSAS servers across your enterprise in one view!
Metrics and servers change color based upon predefined warning and critical ranges.
Set custom filters for any metric or combination of metrics to show only servers requiring attention.
See Windows resources consumed by each SQL Server and SSAS instance for network, CPU, and memory.

Performance Reporting

Powerful SSRS-based performance reporting, including Global Server Status, Wait Stats Analysis, Disk Space, Database File Size, and many more!
Custom Reporting:
- Performance Counter History report lets you report on any combination of servers, performance counters, and instances.
- Date Range Comparison report lets you compare performance across two different date ranges, using any metrics.
Custom reports aren’t limited to only Windows counters -- report on data collected from DMVs, WMI, and even internally calculated metrics like Waits by Category!
Report on any date range, from 3 minutes to 3 years or longer.
Easily save custom reports for future reference.
Deploy reports to an SSRS instance, and create subscriptions to auto-email reports daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
Export reports to PDF, Excel, XML, and other formats.

SQL Server Disk Activity

Revolutionary, patent-pending graphical view of your server’s disk topology and activity.
Shows you exactly how data is moving through your disk system, highlighting bottlenecks at the database file, physical disk, or controller level.
View disk bottlenecks in real-time mode, or historical mode for any date range.
Improve performance by easily identifying common configuration problems such as mixing busy data and transaction log files on the same physical drive.
Automatic Disk Misalignment Detection with comparison to disk latency.
Mount Points displayed alongside all other disks.

Top SQL Analysis

Capture all high impact stored procedures, batches and statements.
Low-overhead tracing system can safely be run 24/7 without impacting SQL Server performance.
Multiple executions of the same SQL are automatically normalized and aggregated, so you can easily determine which SQL is having the greatest overall impact on performance.
Drill into individual query executions to quickly isolate problems with particular parameter values.
Runtime graphs show how a particular query has been trending over time.
View Top SQL on the SQL Sentry calendar, alongside jobs and other events. For the first time you can visualize complex scenarios involving resource contention between queries that simply can’t be ascertained with other software tools using only grid views.
Generate email or pager alerts whenever a query exceeds a specific duration, or contains specific text.

SQL Server Blocking

Hierarchical display of all blocking chains provides the most complete picture of blocks available for SQL Server.
Wait Resources are automatically resolved for you, so for the first time you can instantly see which tables or indexes are being contended for without any manual effort!
Displays blocks on the SQL Sentry calendar alongside other events.
Generate email and pager alerts with full block chain details whenever a block occurs, when a block exceeds a specific duration, or when a blocking query contains specific text.

SQL Server Deadlocks

Provides a graphical display of all deadlock types, synchronized with an innovative grid-based display to provide the most complete picture of SQL Server deadlocks available.
Grid display lists all nodes organized by resource, owners and waiters, and includes the full SQL for all nodes!
Unlike other deadlock graphing tools, deadlock nodes contain the concise information you need to quickly visualize the deadlock and determine the root cause.
Deadlocks are displayed on the SQL Sentry calendar alongside other events.
Generate email and pager alerts including the deadlock victim SQL whenever a deadlock occurs, or when the victim query contains specific text.

Quick Trace®

Provides a complete picture of exactly which processes are doing work on the server by automatically correlating trace and process activity data together for the first time.
Totals are provided for CPU, I/O, network, batches, transactions, cache misses, recompiles, cursor operations, and many other valuable performance metrics.
Eliminates continual starting and stopping of Profiler and refreshing Activity Monitor, and tediously correlating and calculating aggregates.
Quick Trace can be fired automatically in response to many different conditions such as "Job: Runtime Threshold Max", so if a problem occurs after hours you’ll always have the full details.

Calendar View

See Top SQL, Blocking, and Deadlocks on the Outlook-style SQL Sentry Event Manager calendar, alongside SQL Agent jobs and other events.
Chronological display of these types of events provides unparalleled insight into how they can impact each other and SQL Server performance which simply can’t be ascertained from grids alone as used in other software tools.
Quickly jump back and forth between Performance Advisor and Event Manager via context menus and toolbar buttons.

SQL Server Disk Space

Software provides a graphical display of disk space utilization by database and file.
Easily monitor and identify SQL Server disk capacity issues and understand where various database files reside on the disk system.

Benefits

Performance Improvement
Make quicker and smarter decisions by vieiwng SQL Server and Windows performance metrics side-by-side in either real-time or historical mode, and then quickly dive into the detailed root cause of performance issues.

Down Time Reduction
Monitor and diagnose nagging performance problems by evaluating Top SQL and eliminating troublesome blocking and dealock issues.

Lower Database Administration Cost
By using SQL Sentry Performance Advisor the amount of labor required to troubleshoot performance problems is greatly reduced, allowing DBA's to spend more time proactively managing their servers.

Ease of Use
SQL Sentry mirrors your existing SQL Server Enterprise Manager or Management Studio configuration, so you don't have to redefine all of your servers and groups -- just open the SQL Sentry Console and you are ready to go.

Continual Innovation
While other SQL Server monitoring tools have stagnated, SQL Sentry has continued to push the envelope, introducing several industry firsts such as our patent-pending SQL Server disk analysis, unrestricted historical performance reporting, comprehensive deadlock analysis, performance event calendars, intelligent wait analysis, and many more cutting edge features.

Lower Overhead
SQL Sentry’s tools are built to be minimally invasive and incur the lowest possible hit on monitored servers via our agent-less architecture… while other SQL Server monitoring tools incur far more load than they will ever help you to resolve. Some even filter out all of their own query activity so you never see it! Don’t be fooled by misleading claims of lower overhead – install SQL Sentry alongside other tools to see exactly how much of a performance hit they incur. If you’d like to see SQL Sentry’s overhead in a 100-server environment, let us know and we will send you the results of our latest comprehensive benchmark tests.

Lower Cost
SQL Sentry software continually delivers more features, functionality and utility than other SQL Server software tools, at a lower price point. With subscription-based and site licensing options, the relative savings can grow even further.

Higher Quality
SQL Sentry software undergoes intensive regression, scalability and overhead testing in our internal test lab of over 100 SQL Servers. It is then real-world tested in one of the largest SQL Server hosting environments in the U.S., until it is deemed stable enough to release to the public… no matter how long it takes. After release, our integrated, automated exception reporter gives us a perpetual feedback loop with our customers, who are continually surprised to receive a response from a real human usually within hours of submitting an exception.

Scalability
SQL Sentry software is installed in some of the largest SQL Server environments in the world. Our low overhead, agent-less, site-based approach provides almost linear scalability. We have yet to meet a SQL Server environment that the SQL Sentry architecture can’t handle.

World-class Support
SQL Sentry provides the highest level of support services you will find in the SQL Server software world. Our clients continually rave about the responsiveness and technical competence of our support team. You will never speak to a non-technical front-line person that doesn’t understand SQL Server or SQL Sentry software. To the contrary, you will often be speaking directly to a development team member.

Credibility
We are now in our 6th year as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, and our customer survey results say it better than we ever could. Our marks across the board are consistently higher than other Microsoft partners. All customers fell into the "Champion" quadrant, ranking us amongst the top Microsoft ISVs in the world.