I want to seize the opportunity to join the September Free Community Tools Awareness Month .
As an accidental DBA I’ve dived endlessly in search for a concise list of Utilities and Tools and the closest thing I found is… Microsoft SQL Server Utilities and Tools by Konstantin Taranov.
The list could be endless but I just want to pick up the 3 of them that really helped me out.
Here I’m going to list only software that you can install with a double click and just work. No need to ask for a server or special permissions.
These tools helped me see the big picture with no pain and only gain.
- Database Health Monitor by Stedman Solutions
- Is It SQL by scaleSQL Consulting
SQL Check : sp_whoisactive with a GUI
Most of you must know sp_whoisactive. This tool has saved many servers and even more careers.
When I used the tool for the first time I find it a bit hacky and I got easily lost in all those numbers.
SQL Check is just like sp_whoisactive with a GUI.
Database Health Monitor : you’ll never walk alone
You have been recently parachuted on a new customer which infrastructure has never seen a DBA before.
DBCC CHECKDB has never bene run and you don’t know where to start.
Start with Database Health Monitor , it will literary tell you every single step you need to take.
Is It SQL : monitor made easy
DBA belongs to basements and cubicles surrounded by hardware.
You know that something fishy is going on while you watch youtube work and you would like to have a monitor that shows you the big picture.
Pick up an unused workstation and project Is It SQL on a spare monitor . Now it really looks like you are working!
Conclusions
These tools are easy to setup and use and they are perfect for monitoring SQL Server on your on-prem environment.
However they are not eligible for monitoring SQL Server on the Cloud.
I will probably write a second post about monitoring tools that you can use on Azure later on.
For now feel free to comment below.
Great post Francesco!! Thanks!!
Sql Check doesn’t work on servers that haven’t been rebooted in awhile. You get “Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int”. It’s a known bug they haven’t fixed. Pretty much makes the tool worthless for those of us who don’t reboot often.
OK, I never incurred in such bug. Once I worked with a customer which infrastructure was providing services for a few counties. You won’t believe but they were restarting all servers, every night, around 3:00am. It might sound crazy but even Netflix has a thing called Caos Monkey that do the same. Because is better to face the problem instead of kicking the can down the road. Just my point of view