Competition: What’s your favorite SQL Monitor feature?

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  Besides the fact that SQL Monitor overviews is default shown on a screen in our office to monitor the health of our solutions?
  

  Being responsible for the tech-part of our solutions, I have to report every month. I use Uptrends for availability overall and for our SQL-environment, SQL Monitor is the one source for all my reportingneeds.

  Of course I use estate to see how we are doing with our resources. In one view I can see the trend plus if the trend is showing a big deviation.

  The best feature is being able to zoom in to a specific timewindow (for example after a complaint about performance), to see the queries which ran at that time and how long they took and, that's the best, to see the querydetails including the query plan.
  

  
  

  Ferry_StaffSupport February 24, 2021 08:50

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  Do not use SQL Monitor as it is not on our "approved" list.

  dbradford March 02, 2021 13:24

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  The dashboard that shows my servers health at a glance.

  timstu March 02, 2021 20:52

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  I like that I can file all of the alerts into a folder in my mailbox and never deal with them. All jokes aside, this is a crucial tool for keeping your online systems up and running and it makes it easy tin find problems when it happens.
  
  

  ErickS March 02, 2021 21:28

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  So many half decent features to choose from  ... Alerting, Overview page, Estate reporting, Analysis Graphs... Alerting is what we purchased it for, but such a boring choice, so I'm gonna pick the Analysis Graphs... Very useful when looking for long term trends...

  ALPHONSODELARD March 03, 2021 12:09

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  My favorite SQL Monitor feature are as follows
  
  1. Deadlock alert and option to view the deadlock graph and related query
  2. Latest Alerts section with easy drill down option to see by priority
  3. View updates available for all monitored servers from Estate view

  ArunrajC March 03, 2021 22:43

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  Alert customization and customer metrics.

  Able to see granular database details directly by clicking on the database.

  Insights about tempdb which give very useful information.

  VinayV March 09, 2021 10:30

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  I think the Sqlserver toolbelt can be quite irritating because it createss conflict between dragging objects between the object explorer and the query window. I get 2 times the name of a column or a table. I had to turn the toolbelt off.
  

  slimpy01 March 09, 2021 22:00

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  dalib said:

  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.

  How do you do this?

  Sandra March 15, 2021 15:23

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  We have just started using - but so far the biggest help has been the alerting, especially for things we sometimes forget about like indexing.  It has helped me install a lot of best practices as the alerts appear - checkdb, indexes, etc.
  
  I want to say long running queries would be a top alert fav - but I cannot see the query from the tool so it is more of a frustration at the moment - but I am still learning

  Sandra March 15, 2021 15:25

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  My favorite features are:
  

  1. Analysis section
     
  2. Blocking and deadlocks
  3. Estate and report on specific SQL Agent jobs 

  Petur March 16, 2021 11:02

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  Sandra said:

  dalib said:

  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.

  How do you do this? 

  
  Hi @Sandra,
  
  Thank you for entering our competition and sharing your favorite SQL Monitor feature.
  
  You mentioned that you'd like to learn how to find inactive SQL Server databases. You can find out how to do this with the training article Finding Inactive SQL Server Databases.
  
  You also spoke about long-running queries - you can learn more about this in the SQL Monitor documentation: Viewing details of an alert and Top 10 queries
  
  Hope this helps
  
  Roseanna

  Roseanna March 16, 2021 14:13

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  I use the Analytics section the most but the Estate section has become very helpful as we have gone from a small SQL Server footprint of just a handful of servers to over 50+ servers now.

  gmcquibben March 16, 2021 16:13

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  Thank you to everyone who entered our competition to win a 3-month Pluralsight subscription and Redgate goodies. We've really enjoyed hearing about your favorite SQL Monitor features.
  
  I'm delighted to announce that the winner is @ErickS
  
  And that's not all. We're also giving two runners up a Redgate goodie bag too! The lucky recipients of the Redgate goodie bags are @BlueGateDave and @gmcquibben.
  
  Congratulations all. I'll be in touch to arrange delivery of your prizes. 
  
  The next Redgate Forums competition will be launching next week - stay tuned!

  Roseanna March 22, 2021 16:40

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