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 1. Home
 2. SQL Server Performance Monitoring Tools
 3. SolarWinds SQL Sentry Reviews
 4. User Review of SolarWinds SQL Sentry

Why Switch to SQL Sentry?
Updated April 21, 2021


WHY SWITCH TO SQL SENTRY?


Mark Lessard
Associate Director of Database Architecture
MerkleincMarketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User
Review Source



OVERALL SATISFACTION WITH SQL SENTRY


USE CASES AND DEPLOYMENT SCOPE

SQL Sentry is being used to monitor 260 SQL instances across or enterprise. We
are in the process of integrating the alerting capabilities with SCOM via SNMP.
Along with alerting SS greatly increase our efficiency in resolving ongoing and
past performance issues. SS also provides a central repository for reporting at
the enterprise and client level. We previously used a competitors tool for 7
years but moved to SQL Sentry due to the products inability to function in our
environment and more so a lack of response to the issues we were experiencing by
the vendor. Our experience with SQL Sentry support has been excellent to date.
Edit


PROS AND CONS

 * Collecting and rolling up SQL statements with the associated plan. The
   ability to see aggregate and individual execution of SQL statements along
   with the associated plan is key in rapid diagnosis of bad plans. Bad plans
   are the most common performance issue we see in the big data environment.
 * The ability to drill into disk IO. Being able to easily see IO per a file can
   help identify issues with slow / stressed storage and or poorly distributed
   tables.
 * Easily focus on time-frame. Being able to click and drag to select a time
   frame to analyze from a prior time frame keeps maintains the flow of
   troubleshooting.
 * Alerting is inherited and highly configurable.
 * The collection can be distributed over multiple servers allowing scaling out
   horizontally and fault tolerance.
 * AD roles can be used in configuring access to the subsets of the servers
   being monitored. Access can be configured such that adding a user to an
   Active Directory role will provide access to just the servers then need to
   see. This works very well for our client specific operations.

 * The presentation of SQL server waits needs work. A large value on a throw
   away wait like cxpacket will change the scale such that an important wait
   like sos_schedular _yield is not readable. I have been told this is being
   addressed in the next release.
 * Installation of the client requires sysadmin access on the repository server
   for the initial install. Once the install is complete sysadmin can be
   removed.
 * There is a web interface but this does not have much of the functionality
   yet.
 * I have not found a way to view page splits over time.

Edit ProsEdit Cons
Edit


PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS WITH SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY

 * We are more efficient in diagnosing performance issues. Time spent on this
   type or diagnosis has decreased by about 75%. The tool makes it much easier
   to discriminate between issues due to SQL and environment issues versus
   solution architecture and data distribution issues.

Edit


DISCOVERING ROOT CAUSE WITH SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY

A common experience is the SQL optimizer choosing to use a loop join on a large
join. We see this even after stats update with full-scan on the associated
tables. We have tried the optimizer trace flag.

Process.
Find the SQL statement in Top SQL
Look at the historical run times/plans grid. Notice run time and color of dot.
High run-time and different color, you have a bad plan.
Open the plan to review operators
Add hash join query option or join hints. I know this is not best practices
according to MS, but the trade-offs in our OLAP environment make it the best
choice.



Edit


ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED

 * Diagnostic Manager

Diagnostic Manager has a better interface to view waits. This is an issue for
me. SQL Sentry does a better job with showing SQL statments, rolling up the
metrics, providing the code and is able to show the SQL plans. The alerting in
SQL Sentry is easier to use. We are having issues with integrating SQL Sentry
with SCOM via SNMP, SQL Sentry is working on this.

The big difference in these products is support. Both of these products have
bugs and in some cases stop functioning. You can rollback to prior versions but
all of this is time spent on the tool as opposed to doing the job. The support
provided by SQL Sentry is magnitudes better than the support we got from
Diagnostic Manager.
Edit


OTHER SOFTWARE USED

Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server Integration Services, IBM Netezza Data
Warehouse Appliances, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, Teradata Data Warehouse
Appliance
Edit


LIKELIHOOD TO RECOMMEND

I only see one scenario for this type of tool. I want all tools in this category
to collect OS and SQL performance metrics over a time frame and present and or
alert on them in a way that allows me to diagnose availability and performance
issues on the servers. I need this information in real time and historically. I
need to be able to report on this information at the micro and macro level. I
need a tool that just works and a company that stands behind there tool. SQL
Sentry meets these needs.

The only scenario I see were SQL Sentry would not work is were purchase cost of
the product is weighted very heavily as opposed to all other factors.

Edit


SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY FEATURE RATINGS

SQL Performance Monitoring

7.8
Performance dashboard

8
Intelligent alerting

9
Top SQL

10
Historical trend data

6
Virtualization support

6

Edit


SQL SENTRY BUSINESS PROCESSES


BUSINESS PROCESSES SUPPORTED

 * Performance tuning
 * Alerting for performance and availability
 * Responding to runtime issues either real time of forensicly

Edit


KEY DIFFERENTIATORS

 * Product Features
 * Product Reputation

The most important factor was vendor support for the product. You can learn a
new interface, leading products offer the same feature and pricing is
negotiable. You are completely dependent on the vendor to resolve bugs for this
mission critical softeware.
Edit


USING SQL SENTRY


USERS AND ROLES

20 - The tool is used directly to analyze performance and alert on on issues by
the database administrators. The alerts generated by the tool are used by
support personel to route issues appropriately. There is a small number for
developers and operations personal that use the tool to evaluate issues with
campaign runs.
Edit


SUPPORT HEADCOUNT REQUIRED

4 - Our SQL Sentry installation is realitively complex. We monitor over 250
instances using multiple monitors hosted on multiple hosts providing access into
various firewalled networks. In general SQL Sentry requires little support on a
day to day bases other than backups of the repositroy. Upgrades are a different
story and require a person with database administration skills, basic networking
skills and the abiltiy to work with services on a windows operating system. We
spend about 8 manhours on an upgrade. That said Sentry One's latest release has
an automated upgrade feature, I hope it works as designed.

If you want to make use of the custom alerting capabilities then be prepared for
a steep learning curve.
Edit


INNOVATIVE USES

 * Direct integration with our help desk application
 * Identification of connections to a specified server to assist in firewall
   configuration
 * Identification of unused logins

Edit


FUTURE PLANNED USES

 * Make better use of alerting and metrics to identify performance issues.
 * Greater use by operations teams to provide visibilty into production run
   status

Edit


RETURN ON INVESTMENT

 * Far less time is spent on resolving performance issues and the data to
   perform forensic analysis.
 * the ability to address SLA violations with data.

Edit


LIKELIHOOD TO RENEW

10
The primary reason I rate SQL Sentry at a ten is there support. I have worked
with support from Idera, IBM, AWS , Google and Microsoft. SQL Sentry support is
by far the best in all regards. This includes response times, timely resoution
of issues, follow up on going isssues and willingness to escalate an issue as
needed.
Edit


EVALUATING SQL SENTRY AND COMPETITORS


PRODUCTS REPLACED

Yes - Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager. We used Diagnostic Manager for 5 years.
Starting at about 4 years they released a series of updates that broke the
software. Each time we would trouble shoot for days then be told it would be
fixed in the next release and to rollback which took a day. We are a lager site
250 + SQL instances. I escalated the issue and informed them the business was at
risk. When I canceled the contract I had a conversation with a VP. The outcome
is there support model is to fix it in the next release.
Edit


EVALUATION LESSONS LEARNED

We demoed each product against a few instances for a month. We made our final
decision on price. I am not saying price is not a major factor but I should have
spent more time investigating the support model and checking sites like Trust
Radius.

Edit


SQL SENTRY SUPPORT


SUPPORT RATING

10
They usually respond within a few hours and will pull in needed resources
without the need for me to escalate the issue. They take the initiative to
follow up. They are open to suggestions for future enhancements and actually
implement them. They give the impression they want to resolve your issues.
Edit


SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY CUSTOMER SUPPORT PROS AND CONS

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None

Edit


PREMIUM SUPPORT

Not Sure
Edit


BUG RESOLUTION

No
Edit


EXCEPTIONAL EXAMPLES OF SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY SUPPORT

It is the overall support I am impressed with. I expect the vendor to work with
us and keep us informed until the issue is resolved. I want a sense that they
are committed to our success. Out of the vendors we use IBM, Microsoft (Premier
support), AWS, Hortonworks and SQL Sentry, SQL Sentry is the only one that has
met my expectations. Based on my experience with the other vendors the majority
of my support experiences have been exceptional.
Edit


USING SQL SENTRY


USABILITY

9
I accept that the flexibility of the alerting comes at a price. Other than the
alerting SQL Sentry's interface is intuitive. Connecting to a new SQL instance,
given that all the needed ports are open in your firewalls is straight forward.
Reviewing the performance and queries for an instance is available in with a
right click. As you dig in new tabs are created to present the detailed data. I
find the ability to filter and rollup metrics on a query very helpful in dealing
with the "it's running slow". You can easily compare the metrics of run times
for the same query to let the user know, it's probably data your doing a billion
reads instead of the usual 100 thousand.
Edit


USABILITY PROS AND CONS

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Well integrated
Consistent
Familiar
Difficult to use
Requires technical support
Slow to learn

Edit


EASY TASKS

 * Connecting to new SQL instances
 * Performance Monitoring both SQL and Windows
 * Reviewing SQL plans for past and current queries
 * Running reports
 * Blocking and deadlocking detection

Edit


DIFFICULT TASKS

 * Setting up custom alerts has a learning curve. You can create very complex
   alert criteria from queries on the repository and real time. Thresholds for
   duration, frequency of the event and frequency of the alert can all be set.
 * Setting up custom responses has a learning curve

Edit


MOBILE INTERFACE AVAILABILITY AND IMPRESSIONS

Yes, but I don't use it
Edit


SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY

SolarWinds SQL Sentry Product Details
Alternatives to SolarWinds SQL Sentry
All SQL Server Performance Monitoring Tools


MORE REVIEWS OF SOLARWINDS SQL SENTRY

SQL Sentry makes my job easier
Verified UserAdministrator in Information Technology
SQL Sentry to keep an eye on things
Verified UserProfessional in Information Technology


COMMENTS

Please log in to join the conversation

 * Patrick Kelley
   commented 2 years ago
   00
   Hey Mark, First, thank you very much for taking the time to provide such
   great feedback. Secondly, I saw your note on monitoring Page Splits, so I
   wanted to share the below info. There are many counter we do not collect by
   default, but we can enable. The blog linked below will provide steps on how
   to enable additional counters. The example in the blog is actually page
   splits 😊.
   https://www.sentryone.com/blog/justinrandall/didnt-know-5-performance-counters
   Once enable the counters will become available in ACs to alert on, as well as
   the Performance Counter History and Performance Counter Data Range Comparison
   reports. I mention these reports in my blog below, as they are often
   overlooked, and very powerful.
   https://www.sentryone.com/blog/sentryone-performance-analysis-dashboard-tips-and-tricks
   Please let me know if you have any questions about the provided info, or if
   there is anything else we can do to help. Regards,
   Reply
   Submit

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