As part of its recent update of its complete solution portfolio for Microsoft SQL Server, Quest Software is now offering version 3.0 of its Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise performance management tool. Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise is a powerful tool for detection, diagnosis and resolution of performance issues in real time, instantly alerting administrators about deadlocks, blocking, and SQL bottlenecks. Enhanced notifications and troubleshooting capabilities point to the root of performance issues, which DBAs can quickly resolve with new integrated SQL optimization functionality. This solution is built to tackle the challenges faced by SQL Server professionals in the key area of database performance management, and is paired with free access to SQLServerPedia, a community knowledgebase powered by Quest Software.
In order to diagnose performance issues in growing SQL Server environments, DBAs must follow a long list of steps on each server until they find where the problem originates. Once they isolate a problem, determining the root cause and fixing it can be a time-intensive and an incredibly difficult process. That's because DBAs must interpret mountains of data and the resolution is rarely obvious. Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise dramatically simplifies this process. It detects and diagnoses performance problems across a SQL Server environment and provides an overview of enterprise performance through an intuitive interface. Bottlenecks are detected at the server level. Then, the root cause is isolated through granular analyses of metrics and issues are resolved quickly.
Douglas Chrystall, chief technology officer of SQL Server solutions at Quest Software, tells 5 Minute Briefing that "Spotlight on SQL Server runs on a central management server and provides a global view of all SQL Server databases across an enterprise. It can inform DBAs of the health of any given SQL Server database right at that moment, and provides insight and interpretation on over 120 different database performance characteristics via one administration console."
For the latest release, the main new features are custom performance counters, troubleshooting of locking/blocking and deadlocks, and consulting services from SQL Server experts that help to fine tune Quest's interpretations for DBAs of what various alerts mean. The custom performance counters allow DBAs to add-in customized metrics they want to track, and also post those metrics on SQLServerPedia for other DBAs to benefit from. The advanced troubleshooting features enable more detailed analysis to detect the root causes of deadlocks, and provide recommendations to rewrite certain pieces of database code to ensure such deadlocks don't happen again in the future.
For more information about Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise, go here.