Competition: What’s your favorite SQL Monitor feature?

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  SQL Change Automation is d best! It Rocks creating Migrations and Deployment Scripts

  rajkumar February 03, 2021 11:15

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  Hi @rajkumar, it's fantastic to hear that SQL Change Automation rocks creating migrations and deployment scripts! Do you use SQL Monitor too? If so, do you have a favorite feature?

  Roseanna February 03, 2021 11:23

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  Blocking Process is one of the coolest feature! It always corrects me that i didn't hit into pitfall

  rajkumar February 03, 2021 11:30

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  rajkumar said:

  Blocking Process is one of the coolest feature! It always corrects me that i didn't hit into pitfall

  That's awesome. Really pleased to hear that the blocking process alert is so useful. Good luck with the prize draw and have a lovely day

  Roseanna February 03, 2021 11:45

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  So many features to choose from, but I am going to opt for custom metrics.  The reason for this is to enable a consistent alerting platform.  It also allows us to use pre-defined pagerduty alert mechanisms with no extra effort at all.  Where possible, we'll use SQL Monitor custom metrics over jobs configured in SQL Agent.

  clivestrong February 05, 2021 12:19

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  My fave is the alerting.  We use both email and slack for various alerts.

  BlueGateDave February 06, 2021 20:43

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  You can quickly see how your server is performing and which queries are taking the longest. My favourite is the Intelligent alerting & performance dashboard because it provides a quick dashboard to identify what servers have issues, and the priority of them. 
  

  dev26v8 February 07, 2021 03:51

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  Heaps of features make my life easier: Disk usage projections, Custom Metrics to monitor your own applications, emails reports so you can show management trends over time, the Server Overview page (the whole page is awesome, especially the top 10 waits), but the biggest thing has to be Alerts. When monitoring the DB isn't your only job, getting alerted when things go wrong is essential - it lets you get on top of an issue quickly, resolving it (hopefully) before the business even notices. It takes a while to set all of the levels to what your systems need so you just get the alerts that matter, but it's worth the investment.

  GDodd February 07, 2021 22:23

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  Gotta love the dashboard. It just sits there all day where it can be glanced at. All green = all good! (I do wish it had a large format / TV mode though.)

  matthanson February 09, 2021 16:13

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  The feature I like most is alerts so I get notified to when something is wrong. But I will also say the reports because I can share it easily and I don't have to check queries or events for myself to present them.

  Sidneylc February 09, 2021 19:17

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  We are using SQL Monitor

  the most interesting are: main dashboard, as well as Tempdb monitoring, Blocking processes, Availability groups and the databse view.

  MarkoEncinapy February 10, 2021 01:53

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  Tempdb session & version store give a quick & precise indication of [where to start] when monitoring an instance for me - they are really useful, thanks!

  nreynard February 10, 2021 01:59

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  Blocking process, then deadlocks.
  
  I am totally depending on redgate on that, the best detailed email i get ever for these 2 issues

  Ayman_Elnory February 10, 2021 04:31

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  I love the API - we've been able to use it in some automation.

  deboraht007 February 10, 2021 20:22

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  Thank you for all your entries so far. It's been fantastic to learn about your favorite features  
  
  Looking forward to receiving more entries. The competition closes on 20 March, so you've got a while yet to submit your favorite SQL Monitor feature for the chance of winning a Pluralsight subscription and Redgate goodies.
  
  

  Roseanna February 12, 2021 14:35

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  For us it's AG latency monitoring. 
  Being a financial company we need to have split second synching between HQ and DR so AG latency monitoring is crucial

  angelos February 16, 2021 06:26

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  We find the Global Overview the most useful, it gives us the status of all our servers at a glance.  We can then drill down to investigate any issues.  That along with the alerting features available we are always on top of any potential problems

  Chancer February 16, 2021 08:25

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  TempDB and Blocking process monitoring as well as main perfmon figures

  eliassal February 16, 2021 08:27

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  I love the ability to customize the alert levels.  This allows me to get pestered by emails from the issues that really matter (as defined by the team).  That way there aren't too many alerts that consequently get ignored.

  VBJV February 16, 2021 10:15

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  I have been using SQL monitor for years. I have loved this tool from the beginning but since the last updates to the Dashboard\Overview and others. Redgate has stepped up their game in the market. Favorites for me would be the deadlock graph much easier than doing this in SSMS all the tabs are there for alert history to occurrences. Another favorite is the Analysis Graph this really helps us plug in the time line to get that historical information on just about everything you can think of. Moving right along to the reports to create custom reports to send out weekly or what ever time frame you like. This helps us stay proactive on the areas we have identified has hot spots we need to work on. Last the new estate tab this one is great easily to identify what needs patched and the disk usage needs. I cant really say I have a favorite overall I love all the features in this tool and will continue to use this for years to come. Thanks Redgate

  dyard February 16, 2021 15:42

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  Alert Suppression Windows and being able to build automation around it. We perform our monthly server patching process in 3 phases (environment-based). We are able to use our enterprise job schedule to find all the systems in our "TEST" group, and add a suppression window. We are then able to use the same type of automation to remove the suppression window when the work is completed. We do this also for our STAGE and PRODUCTION environments. Reduces noise and manual work!

  jholck February 16, 2021 20:14

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  The analysis graphs are quick and easy to use to dive into trends.  A couple clicks and you have a great view of the metrics you were looking for.

  mschmelzer1 February 16, 2021 20:23

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  Top queries and waits because of full query details and automatic updates. Best monitoring tool. 

  knja February 16, 2021 22:18

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  Blocking and Deadlock alerting is very important as it might signify problems with memory, IO latency, stressed CPU, bad code, missing indices and other problems.
  

  joey321 February 16, 2021 23:12

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  My Best features of SQL Monitor are

  
  

  1. SQL Server monitoring and alerting tool, designed to allow Ops teams to supervise many SQL Server instances across different networks.

  
  

  2.It allows you to add Users,Manage Monitored Servers,Configuring Alerts & Alerts  Notifications,Respond to Alert Notifications, Analyse Metrics with a  Global Dashboard.

  
  

  3. Estate pages help DBAs monitor and safeguard the security, stability and availability of their servers.
  

  
  

  4. SQL Monitor allows you to create,configure,schedule,email and download reports. 
  
  Wanting to win the Pluralsight subscription and Redgate goodies.
  
    
  

  deepaklal February 17, 2021 08:07

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  Finding inactive SQL server databases is an excellent feature, because it helps to keep memory clean and help monitor database activity, gives you idea at a high abstraction level about all databases in use and others that aren't.

  dalib February 19, 2021 07:15

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  My favourite feature is the baseline. That I can easily see how a particular metric was over, say the last week or month, is very useful. I don’t use it often but when I do want it, it is a lifesaver.

  The feature that I am most thankful for and that I use most often is the Overviews screen. We have 27 production instances and being able to see them at all at a glance is wonderful. We have a big screen mounted in our office with the Overview screen displayed on it. I can use it to show PMs, people from Helpdesk whether an instance is under more load than usual this morning, I can respond reasonably quickly to a deadlock, failed job or some other event that requires my attention. I notice from the movement or colour change that something has happened.

  And during home-office, it occupies my second screen.
  

  sredmond February 23, 2021 11:40

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  Hi there,
  For me the best feature is the 'Latest Alerts' side panel. It lets me know a fast overview on how the system is performing and allows a rapid (less clicks) to get to any issues.

  BrunoPimenta February 23, 2021 15:44

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  I like the dashboard for a quick view of issues on any SQL Server, but the Custom Metrics are a plus too!
  

  Camromere February 23, 2021 16:57

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  SQL Monitor has to be #1 - it's got us out of sooo many difficult situations its like having an engineer on call 24/7

  TonyR February 24, 2021 07:28

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