⭐ Although Hosting Data is pretty known for its focus on NoSQL databases (read more about our merger with nosql-databases.org), we know a little bit about SQL too.
First things, implementing efficient Microsoft SQL Server monitoring software is crucial to preserving the protracted health of both your database and your wider network.
Not only since fixing a server breakdown might come with a high premium, but monitoring server output and usage can also directly help with decreasing outages and affordability.
To this purpose, we’ve reviewed a variety of premium and free server database health monitoring software and gathered the best selections to meet the demands and budgets of different businesses. Two solutions are at the top of the heap, both from the market leader SolarWinds®: their Server & Application Monitor and their SQL Sentry.
To provide you with a foundational grasp of SQL Server use, I’ve covered some of these essentials in the Overview and Buying Guide sections. And whether you want better performance or infrastructure to help you sell your business later, this review will cover some of the best SQL server monitoring tools around today.
Let’s find out. ✔️
Table of Contents:
- Overview
- 1. ☁️ SolarWinds DB Performance Analyzer
- 2. ☁️ SolarWinds SQL Sentry
- 3. ☁️ LepideAuditor
- 4. ☁️ SolarWinds Server & App Monitor
- 5. ☁️ SolarWinds SQL Warnings
- 7. ☁️ Datadog
- 6. ☁️ AppDynamics
- 8. ☁️ Dynatrace UEM
- 9. ☁️ ManageEngine Applications Manager
- 10. ☁️ Paessler PRTG Network Monitor
- 11. ☁️ Acronis Cyber Protect
- 12. ☁️ Site24x7
- 13. ☁️ Redgate
- Buying Guide
- FAQs
Our Favourite SQL Server Monitoring Tools (Free & Paid Options) 🛰️ — Overview
Rookie to this topic? No problem — and seeing as the world is speeding up, here’s a flash overview to get you up-to-speed on what SQL Server is and why you might want to monitor things. For more, head to the buying guide area…
Six things to know about UK SQL Server monitoring...
- DBMS — First, know about the Database Management System (DBMS). It’s as good a place as any for a newbie to begin their study of SQL Servers. A database management system is essentially a group of applications that let users access, organise, and alter data.
- Benefits — Second, know that a DBMS can be helpful in any situation that demands the handling of a sizable store of related data, although it is primarily employed by IT experts at the corporate level.
- Evolution — Did you know that the earliest DBMS systems used a paradigm that organised data in a way that resembled a tree? This structure is known as a ‘hierarchy’... In other words, information was kept in records that were linked by connections, or branches if you want to go with the analogy.
- “Relationals” 🌞 — Today, the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), emphasises the data-to-data relationship and takes a more intertwined, distributed methodology, which has now entirely supplanted the hierarchical DBMS [tips for choosing the best database for your business].
- Changes — In essence, an RDBMS uses columns and rows to record information in an organized way, which facilitates finding and retrieving certain values. Since the data in each table are connected to one another and since the actual tables may be associated with other tables, this method is known as a relational system.
- RDBMS Benefits — In order to link relevant data items across databases, SQL Server employs a row/column architecture, which is an RDBMS tech. As a result, you don't need to store information in more than one place inside a database. Additionally, the integrity requirements imposed by this relational approach help to ensure the accurate processing of data, maintaining data correctness.
- Microsoft SQL Server — Microsoft SQL Server supports an array of business intelligence, analytical, and payment processing apps are supported. This RDBMS is among the most widely used databases in the industry, but like many others, Microsoft SQL Server has to be closely watched to keep track of operational issues and make sure they don't affect the delivery of crucial services.
Top SQL Server Monitoring Tools (Free & Paid Options) ☁️ – Reviews 2023
The use of SQL Server health software lets users monitor server performance problems and take appropriate steps prior to them becoming expensive system failures. It can be confusing because there is a wide range of available tools.
It's crucial to know which features to prioritise and to be able to weigh your requirements against complication and usefulness. This study of SQL server monitoring tools will examine the available products, comparing them to one another, outlining their benefits and drawbacks, and determining if they meet your requirements.
⭐ Note on SolarWinds - As is commonplace in a list of IT management solutions, SolarWinds is the manufacturer of a number of the toolkits on this page. The best options tend to be expensive. That said, I've also listed a few top-notch free SQL monitoring solutions for people looking for a focused, portable solution.
1. SolarWinds DB Performance Analyzer – Top SQL Monitoring Tool
📘 The Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is our first from SolarWinds… This powerful and sophisticated application blends together a broad range of functions. It provides a 24/7, straightforward, and client SQL monitoring solution.
Users gain from capabilities for live monitoring, a straightforward, minimalist interface, and a warning system to make you aware of key developments while limiting notifications.
With DPA, SolarWinds has succeeded in living up to its reputation as an expert-led, bright, and inventive company. This SQL monitoring tool provides sophisticated tools without sacrificing usability and access for non-programming users.
The "Response Time Analytics" method of eliminating bottlenecks is one of SolarWinds DPA's leading features in my opinion. Response Time Analysis, invented by SolarWinds, concentrates on tracking and evaluating the interval between a search request and a search return, after which it is divided into intervals known as "waits." The effect of these delays on database performance is tracked. This process affects every other feature of SolarWinds DPA, including the main dashboard and graphics.
On that subject, the dashboard is a noteworthy perk. SolarWinds DPA offers a flexible graphical visualization of data, with choices to examine information as both an outline and in more depth, in contrast to information solutions with a crowded main screen.
For instance, while looking at data on a bar chart, mousing over one of the data pieces (see image above) displays a more thorough version of the relevant query. Data interpretation is straightforward and obvious when it is possible to see information in a more basic form before digging further.
There are too numerous remarkable features in SolarWinds DPA to go through each one in detail here, so I've included a handful of my other favourites instead:
- Alignment of the tool, system admin, and operations teams are made possible by the browser platform, ensuring that they are constantly in sync.
- Compatibility with Orion®: By integrating both, you can access more pertinent database information, like analytics for apps.
- DPA is a smart abnormality detector that constantly improves. Your instance wait behaviour pattern will teach it how to adjust its notification parameters automatically.
📡 This is not by any means a comprehensive list. You can take advantage of their two-week free trial to get a better understanding of how using DPA can accomplish remarkable outcomes.
2. SolarWinds SQL Sentry – Leading SQL Server Monitoring Tool
Using the SQL Sentry business tool, you can rapidly discover lengthy and highly impactful SQL Server searches which will help you fix search quality issues more rapidly.
The integrated fast view of live and timeline occurrences and performance data helps DBAs more quickly get visibility throughout their whole data estate.
Also, SQL Sentry is able to display search histories, planning maps, and other features to assist you in finding and resolving highly problematic requests more quickly.
You can benefit from the following SQL Sentry overview and streamlining features:
- ✔️ Specific questionable words repeated hundreds of times in a short amount of time
- ✔️ Over time, identify the most resource-intensive requests and start query optimization inside the same interface.
- ✔️ Keep track of how query speed is affected by recent releases and levels over time.
The dashboard includes tabs to see the top SQL statements, all blocking actions, tempDB activity, deadlocks, and session collections in addition to offering the same richness of key metrics as the client app. The displays may be customised for certain time periods, and for deadlocks, you receive the same thorough information as in the client app, but without the playback option.
Select which host and performance metrics you want to be shown on the portal's numerous bespoke dashboards. Each dashboard has the option to display the most recent activity in real-time or to stop the live data flow and switch to a specific date range.
SolarWinds SQL Sentry offers everything needed to guarantee that server databases function optimally for admins involved in a continuous proactive oversight, to maintain them at optimal performance. A noteworthy feature is the clever deadlock analysis service, which is available in both the client app and website and provides a stunning amount of data concerning host and database operation.
Although the overwhelming number of functions can result in a high learning curve, SolarWinds has helpful online documentation, and we thought both consoles were nicely made and rather simple to use. With regard to organisations of all sizes, the tool scales effortlessly, and considering what it delivers, the pricing is more than fair.
📡 By getting a free trial, you can enjoy SQL Sentry for 2 weeks without obligation.
3. LepideAuditor – Trusted SQL Server Monitoring Tool for Auditing
I like how Lepide focuses on modifications; it has remarkable, all-encompassing auditing capabilities.
It can keep you informed without overburdening you with details by tracking essentially each SQL instance, which includes modifications to the setup of SQL users, triggering, databases, privileges, and usernames and passwords.
This is made possible by its ingenious notification system, which enables you to precisely choose when you would like to be told and when you choose not to.
LepideAuditor's SQL task manager gives you the ability to:
- ✔️ View utilisation, connection, error, and CPU use data.
- ✔️ Select how you want to get alerts: by email, push notifications on LepideAuditor, or console updates.
- ✔️ Check the condition of any online SQL servers.
- ✔️ Create thorough reports that display the use, tables, accounts, databases, and object modifications.
- ✔️ Create custom reports using parameters that you may change.
- ✔️ Use a smartphone application that gives you access to a live broadcast.
Although I like the product's focus on innovation, it lacks the degree of information and interactive features you might hope for. It could be improved it if adopted a feature akin to SolarWinds DPA's graphical data presentation, which enables users to access a more in-depth summary of a particular query, leading them right to the source of an issue.
📡 Most of the common Windows versions are all compatible with LepideAuditor. A 2-week free trial of this programme is available.
4. SolarWinds Server & App Monitor – Popular SQL Server Monitoring for SMBs
It was difficult to decide between SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DAP) and its Server & Application Monitor (SAM) when determining the best monitoring tool for an online business.
Regarding their quality, they are comparable, yet there are significant disparities among them in terms of outlook and attention.
In the end, we went for SAM. When compared to SQL server monitoring software, SAM is far more health-focused whereas DPA is a little more concerned with search functionality and user experience. But in both instances, SAM and DPA can help you determine what stress your data is under and where it is coming from.
SAM will tell you what percentage of your available resources are being employed and provide you with a general description of the state of your databases. DPA, by comparison, identifies how those capabilities are being utilized at the layer of the requests handled, which is useful in determining how wait times for the user are affected. SAM and DPA are, in essence, two opposing but essentially related aspects of the same coin.
DPA may help you optimise application queries, which might lead to higher performance improvements. Having said that, SAM also makes a great SQL measurement system. You could discover that your business might benefit from it more, depending on how complicated your demands are.
📡 Try both tools and decide which works best for you. SAM provides a risk-free, fully featured trial, much like DPA.
5. SolarWinds SQL Warnings – Best FREE Server Monitoring Tool
SolarWinds SQL Plan Warnings seemed satisfying enough, according to research, to put it in fifth place even though free SQL monitoring solutions can't really rival commercial ones, in sum.
Given that it is completely free, its functionality is really astounding. I appreciate SQL Plan Warnings most because it makes problems that you might not even be aware of visible.
And it handles this quickly and unobtrusively; this is due to the tool's lack of installation requirements. In less than two minutes, you can get going and have very immediate transparency of any searches that have warnings associated with them.
Additionally, the programme offers you practical advice that will enable you to implement a sensible and suitable repair. Key elements include:
- Filters outcomes based on keywords or the kind of caution
- Gives consumers the option to look at plan alerts or search text with only one click
- Provides a distinctive perspective on plan alerts that aren’t easily overlooked
- Organises warnings based on CPU, execution, or elapsed time
It's amazing how much SolarWinds SQL Plan alerts can do to boost query performance for nothing. It's an essential product in my view because you can just get and operate it right away.
6. Datadog – Solid SQL Event Monitoring Tool
Datadog offers a straightforward Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture for enabling efficient cloud-based monitoring and systems management, with prices beginning at £5 per task monthly if charged yearly. Although built specifically for cloud service application monitoring, it has enough features to cover almost all application layer monitoring needs, which should please development-focused businesses and service providers.
There are already more than 350 connections with a range of APIs and services, in addition to compatibility with a number of important communication protocols, including SSH, TCP, and SNMP.
If you wish to test it out, there is a 14-day free version available. Particularly for businesses that are equally interested in application control and network monitoring, Datadog is absolutely worth looking into. In terms of configuration and costs, there are various different pricing categories available for Datadog, but three are probably the most common for general-purpose IT. The Network Performance tier, which costs £5 per task monthly, is most probably the tier that smaller to midsized business (SMB) IT professionals will use for system and network management.
For those who wish to utilise the tool as a centralised monitoring service for services and systems the Architecture Tier, which costs a tenner hourly per host monthly, is available. The last option is the APM level, which will set you back £25 per host monthly and is intended for bigger organisations trying to address service- and device-layer issues.
More specialised levels are available. A Serverless tier, likewise £5 per host monthly, is available for users that want to keep track of application and network problems including congestion and failures. For businesses with a lot of log data to analyse for meaning and preservation, there is a £1 per million log events monthly level aptly referred to as the Log Management level.
Furthermore, a number of levels of security monitoring, synthetic monitoring, and actual user monitoring, with prices that are reasonable for each task's primary function. The costs shown above are all invoiced yearly, making Datadog among the most flexible management tools we've come across in terms of pricing.
Overall, it would seem that setup is simpler than working out how to pay. You'll be asked to install certain agents that will stay on and keep an eye on the host machine that they are running on after you login into Datadog for the very first time.
⭐ Overall, Datadog involves more effort than the majority of the other network monitoring applications we tested to configure it the way you desire. But when you've accomplished that, using it is quite simple. The web API guarantees that you may expand the service as needed, and it has a large variety of plugins accessible. It is also totally offered as a software as a service model, which makes it the perfect choice for people who dislike managing an expensive monitoring system on-site.
7. AppDynamics – Powerful SQL Network Monitoring Tool
Huge firms with large human resources also frequently have a variety of internet, frequently mission-critical apps, in addition to a large number of websites.
Consumers want a network monitoring solution that focuses on stability, analytics, and performance in addition to cutting-edge capabilities for these cases.
The tool in this overview of website monitoring services is called AppDynamics, and it starts at £3,000 per unit yearly. Competing systems like SmartBear AlertSite may provide superior functionality in individual areas, but none of them integrate all of these features into a seamless, corporate package the way AppDynamics does.
There are two basic versions of the AppDynamics package: a free, Compact version targeted at a single app and a premium, Pro edition. The cost of the enterprise-focused model AppDynamics Pro is expressed in terms of licenced units of its many product modules. There are 9 separate product components, each of which is available as a subscription model, a 1- or 3 subscriptions, or as a web, software-as-a-service (SaaS), on-premises implementation.
End User Experience Monitoring (EUEM), which includes Web and mobile applications, Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Infrastructure, Database, and Application Analytics are the different product categories for AppDynamics. In accordance with the infrastructure and applications they need to oversee, clients can licence one or more package modules.
There can be no denying the cost of AppDynamics. The pricing of AppDynamics only increases after that, significantly surpassing the basic price of Dynatrace UEM (£9,000.00 at Dynatrace), the other truly corporation solution in our comparison. The key distinction is that an organisation using AppDynamics receives a comprehensive web and architecture management system as part of an extensive APM package.
This implies that the enterprise's corporate customers, programmers, and IT employees are all using the same data, adapted to their individual needs, in the same location. It is without a doubt one of the most potent solutions we discovered, with the broadest tracking (from a site's face to its backend architecture) and in-depth, business-oriented statistics.
A business client will want more licencing units the more runtimes their code is running on since each runtime instance needs an agent to gather and transmit monitoring data to the AppDynamics controller. Runtime refers to the setting under which a website's code is executed. For instance, AppDynamics provides runtime instances for Java, .NET, PHP, and Node.js, each of which calls for a separate agent licence unit.
🛰️ For bigger purchases of AppDynamics products, a volume discount with lower per-unit pricing is available. The cost is £3,000 per unit yearly for units one through ten, and £2,500 for units eleven through twenty-five (with additional discounts for a three-year subscription).
8. Dynatrace UEM – Well-Designed SQL Network Monitoring Tool
In order to concentrate on app performance management (APM) and UX tracking (UEM), Dynatrace LLC withdrew from founding firm Compuware Corp.
Its simplified Dynatrace UX Management (Dynatrace UEM) solution, which amply demonstrates that particular emphasis, is the end result.
A one-year membership to the web tracking provider Dynatrace UEM typically costs £9,000. That median represents the combined yearly costs SMBs and businesses can expect.
However, for that price, Dynatrace UEM provides a versatile and potent site tracking solution, providing company data throughout all channels and total transparency across several digital channels via the windscreen for what the firm refers to as its "Customer XP Cockpit."
Dynatrace UEM is positioned solidly in the centre of the top level in this comparison of site monitoring tools. Nevertheless, AppDynamics (£3,000.00 at AppDynamics), gives deeper insight into your architecture and a larger range of integrated platform components to expand capabilities. When it comes to notifying and inexpensive price levels, SmartBear AlertSite Pro may beat Dynatrace. Dynatrace UEM, however, is a thorough network monitoring tool that excels in user experience (UX) analytics, visualisations, reports, and company-level, user activity tracking.
You’ll be charged according to a usage model based on the number of client visits. Annual membership costs £9,000 on average, and the price rises with price breaks for tracking more sites, apps, or individuals. However, Dynatrace offers a normalised pricing structure that enables clients to begin with a cost of as little as £.012 for RUM. Although Dynatrace does not pos t cost information on its page, the firm claims that its clients typically pay low four figures for yearlong agreements or £90 monthly.
It offers the most costly pricing of the group in this comparison, together with AppDynamics. However, when the yearly price of Dynatrace UEM is contrasted to the companies that provide month-by-month billing, it's not as unfair as some of the itemised solutions around like Pingdom (which bill further as you grow traffic and ramp up).
As mentioned above, the firm's recently unveiled "Customer XP Cockpit," which aims to provide live UX data in one location, includes Dynatrace UEM in addition to its alternative application performance monitoring (APM) technology.
For instance, when the user happiness icon on the overview page is clicked, dynamic pie charts showing Apdex UX, client class, location, app edition, connectivity, and OS are displayed. The other charts instantly recalculate depending only on the parameter selected when any pie slice in any of the circles is clicked, for as when just iOS usage or only synthetic customers (the robots controlled by Dynatrace's Synthetic Monitoring tool, previously known as Gomez) are shown below.
The complete range of services from Dynatrace contains not just its APM solution but also unfettered access to Dynatrace Synthetic Monitoring, an internet platform for performance analysis targeted at retailers, and Dynatrace RUM, a system and application monitoring solution based in data centres.
Synthetic and Real-User Monitoring are jointly provided by Dynatrace and are available on its normalised price structure. Customers have the option to start modularly with both RUM and artificial parts before adjusting their approach and choosing one over the other according to their company's needs.
In all, compared to many other website monitoring tools, Dynatrace UEM provided substantial dashboard modification, the greatest convenience for corporate customers, and the most useful business metrics (and the platform is barely a few months old).
🛰️ As soon as Dynatrace accomplishes its previously announced acquisition with Keynote Systems and completely incorporates this last company's end-to-end APM technologies, the company's analytics and monitoring abilities are expected to expand even more.
9. ManageEngine Applications Manager – Review
With the help of ManageEngine, businesses can successfully monitor and control their most important applications and data centres.
This enterprise-level SQL Server monitor is both an approachable and affordable app management solution. Companies use it to keep an eye on online apps, web/app servers, data, and networks, which are essential to the health and operation of enterprises.
The IT Team can rapidly and effectively fix program stability problems because of its comprehensive blend of diagnostic capabilities and enterprise readiness.
The Applications Manager offering was created to assist clients in managing a wide range of applications, databases included. Oracle, DB2, SQL, and other databases are supported by ManageEngine. Additionally, it may be used for bespoke database search queries. Because the Applications Manager can oversee both VMWare and Hyper-V. With this, virtualization is made straightforward. More sophisticated web monitoring features are supported, as well as servers like Apache.
With the aid of this tool, you are able to track software quality with full transparency, even down to individual lines of code. In addition, users can employ a united console to manage many apps, view app interdependence, find app topology automatically, track applications at the transactional level, and leverage script insights for Java,.NET, and Ruby on Rails programs.
🛰️ Overall, use this SQL Server monitor to keep an eye on your databases, web server software, communication modules, API, architecture, containers, and cloud-based services with the help of Applications Manager, which helps you to solve problems fast and boost efficiency. Ensure that architectural issues don't affect how well your commercial apps work. Before they have an impact on your clients, you can rapidly identify and fix them. To assist in this, you’ll discover more than 100 pre-made reports to gain actionable insights into how well apps are doing, quickly making new reports or modifying existing ones.
10. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor (Free Trial) – Advanced SQL Server Monitor
Paessler PRTG is aimed at seasoned IT experts proficient in both their field of expertise and their administration of it. If that doesn't leave you winded, and your team can handle PRTG’s complex licencing model, this is a great management platform.
For a basic number of sensors, the permanent licence for this well-known network monitoring workhorse will cost you £1,460/$1,750.
Paessler's licencing model for PRTG is a little different from others because it is charged according to the number of sensors. One metric on a unit is referred to as a sensor. For example, if you're responsible for a sizable switch, the sensor may be checking the integrity of the connection or determining if the CPU use of the switch is at or over 0%.
As you might anticipate, dependent on the amount of data you want to access, even managing a medium‐sized system in this manner may soon become costly. The price website for Paessler, which begins at £1,460/$1,750 for 500 sensors and goes all the way up to £13,000/$15,500 for a virtually infinite number, makes this clear.
Although its licencing model and UI design aren't plusses, PRTG can be an excellent solution once you start using it. IT specialists will not only discover the monitoring software they need, but also an unending stream of device monitoring assistance thanks to a range of additional plug-ins, which you can put down to PRTG's open-sourced infrastructure. Even if its network mapping capability necessitates using some educational materials, you'll discover that they are highly beneficial even for daily monitoring after you've done that.
🛰️ PRTG can be both strong and user-friendly as long as you know what type of system you have to observe and also don't mind its licence model. It's possible to become overwhelmed by the number of features, but IT professionals won't soon run out of possibilities.
11. Acronis Cyber Protect – Simple SQL Server Monitoring for Remote Teams
With extensive cybersecurity and device management capabilities, Acronis Cyber Protect goes above commercial-grade cloud backup and storage. These services are particularly helpful today with so many companies offering remote work.
Acronis Cyber Protect adds more cloud security features to its enterprise-grade cloud storage and backup solution offered in its entry-level Acronis Cyber Backup product.
Cyber Protect focuses on extra security and device admin tools. It starts at £49.00/$59.00 per year. As a result, Acronis Cyber Protect is a brand-new service that looks well-suited to manage the realities of working remotely today. Its 3-pronged approach to this commonplace contact is 1) integrated defence management, including 2) cybersecurity and 3) backup and restoration. Overall, even if it's not the most user-friendly tool, it's unquestionably one of the finest designed and feature-rich options.
This extensive security toolkit ought to appeal to a wide range of consumers. While Cyber Protect is somewhat more expensive than average for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMBs), it is nonetheless within reach, and corporate clients that want to secure their workers' info on smartphones and distant PCs will find it appealing. For smaller firms, some of the capabilities of Acronis Cyber Protect, such as analytical backup and the capacity to run a memory dump on an existing machine, could seem excessive. Still, having such options available might come in helpful in the long run regardless of the size of the organisation being secured.
Acronis might not be the best choice for smaller businesses seeking something more straightforward and affordable. However, thoroughly consider the cost vs getting an all-in-one system that includes not only backups but also endpoint protection and device administration with capabilities specifically targeted at remote teams. Contrast that with choosing a less expensive option that only focuses on data backup and restoration and may still be more suited for headquarter offices than, say, vast numbers of remote staff.
🛰️ Having the ability to use all of Acronis' capabilities and security from a single interface point of control is a noteworthy benefit that CIOs and administrators should undoubtedly find alluring for enterprises that require the majority, if not every one of these functions and security. Overall, Acronis Cyber Protect's enterprise-level cloud backup and monitoring solution is extensive and multi-faceted.
12. Site24x7 – Simple SQL Monitor for Websites and Servers
Anybody who has attempted it knows how difficult it is to keep track of server and site monitoring. Additionally, this process only gets harder as there are more servers and sites to manage.
The complexity of this operation further increases with the expansion of these aspects… But thanks to monitoring systems like Site24x7, it is much simpler for admins to get some shut-eye at the end of a day’s work.
ZOHO provides this tool which functions technically as an integrated cloud monitoring system. It was specifically designed to make it easier for IT, admin, and DevOps teams to monitor the functionality and health of digital assets including servers, networks, and apps in small-to-medium enterprises (SMBs). Site24x7 can be used to monitor private or public sites.
A central use of Site24x1 is measuring user experience (UX) for clients and guests across servers, sites, and applications used via smartphones or desktops. One feature that distinguishes this software is that its setup is simple, and the resources it covers are both numerous and diversified. Additionally, the suite assists any team while fulfilling management's requests for feedback.
🛰️ Among the many activities that the Site24x1 software suite is capable of carrying out include monitoring, inspecting, accessing, analysing, and reports.
13. Redgate – Modern SQL Network Monitoring
Another strong SQL performance monitor is Redgate SQL Monitor. This application has a lot of positive aspects, such as intelligent alerts, a uniform browser UI, and an easy-to-use overview.
The notification system is quite versatile and comes with 40 pre-made, completely customisable notifications.
Users can establish alerts based on the server, instance, or database level. This product's web-based interface, which allows for accessibility from wherever, is another perk. Also included is the dashboard, which enables you to observe a targeted and pertinent collection of key metrics, assisting you in swiftly digging down to the core of the problem.
The Global Overview feature of Redgate SQL Monitor enables you to see the status of all connected servers in a single point of control. This POC presents a network-wide color-coded representation of server health. A server's status will be indicated by turning red and displaying a problem or failure message. This software gives you the following:
- In one point of control, keep an eye on multiple servers
- Get notifications about database performance
- See logging errors
Redgate has its own notifications since they understand that it is challenging to monitor a server network in real-time even with this top-down perspective.
🛰️ Overall, the user-friendly interface is what really stands out. Although it has a smart look, it misses the intricacy that some of the tools on our list have and doesn't offer any particularly distinctive capabilities for SQL server monitoring. Asking for a link from Redgate gets you a fully working, 14-day free trial (emailed to you).
13 Best SQL Server Monitoring Tools — Buying Guide
Now that we’ve investigated some of the most powerful SQL server monitoring tools around, let’s look at how things work.
What is SQL? ☁️
A database is basically a table with rows and columns. And the most popular language for retrieving and sorting from such databases around is SQL.
SQL is designed to better get precise info from databases which can then be analysed. Due to its rugged reliability, it’s preferred by banks and accounting to predictably execute financial transactions at speed, scale, and across time without duplications or other inaccuracies. To collect the data you want from a client database, even if the analytic process is performed on a different platform, such as Python or R, SQL is needed. In other words, it’s essential for information processing at scale.
How Does SQL Work?
Large volumes of information can be handled with SQL, especially if a large amount of cloud data is being produced concurrently and many operations.
Despite many other SQL types and architectures being around, MySQL is foremost. Its open-source version, MySQL, simplifies the management of back-end information for web apps. SQL is used by many companies, such as Meta, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others, for back-end processing and data storage. As well as by financial and banking firms and apps.
What is SQL Server? ☁️
One of Microsoft’s Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) offerings is SQL Server. It has the ability to build, administer, and execute relational networks.
Overall, SQL Server is a widely used programme because it lets many people collaborate on data stores at once. Participants can be on anything from little office computers to enormous web servers. And it offers a wide range of SQL programming options, from basic SQL to sophisticated RDBMS infrastructure.
Why is SQL Server Useful?
- It is highly useful for saving backend data so that it can be readily processed. Its user-friendly interface enables the backend programmer to concentrate more on looking after the information rather than becoming anxious about how it functions.
- The .Net framework can be linked with it quite simply given that it is a Microsoft offering and is a member of the same company.
- SQL Server is always favoured over other methods of data storage, such as Excel, textual, and so on, because of its incredible ability to process data, to provide strong protection, and primarily because of its capability to hold voluminous data.
FAQs - Top SQL Server Monitoring Tools
What Distinguishes Databases from SQL Server?
SQL-written database searches are consistent at all times. SQL Server, on the other hand, is copyrighted software created for business use. As a result, updates are made often. Therefore, you’ll find several versions of SQL Server that may be used, and each new version offers some improved functionality.
Is SQL Server the Same as MySQL?
No, MySQL and SQL Server are not interchangeable. Despite the fact that they are both relational database management systems, their application scenarios, costs, licences, capabilities, benefits, and other aspects vary. Whereas Oracle provides MySQL, Microsoft provides SQL Server.
When should I use SQL Server?
Owing to its connection with Azure AI, Microsoft SQL Server allows the user to quickly merge information into apps and make use of a wide range of analysis services to use AI at any volume of data for both on-site and cloud contexts.
Final Words 🌞
Assessing a server's performance is the ultimate aim of SQL monitoring. Effective monitoring requires collecting data constantly over time to identify performance patterns and taking periodical snapshots of present levels to identify any processes that are covertly creating issues. You’re able to monitor the database's present state and monitor activities using any of the tools provided in this review.