Performance Baselines and Benchmarks for Microsoft SQL Server
- The Challenges of Database Performance Baselines and Benchmarks
- The True Value of Baselines: The Foundation for Service Monitoring
- How to Construct Your First Baseline
- Five Steps to Running a Successful Baseline/Benchmark Test
- Baselining in SQL Sentry Performance Advisor
- Integrating Baselines and Alerting
- Baseline and Benchmark Testing Best Practices with the Native Tools
Choosing the Right SQL Server Monitoring Tools for Your Database Server Environment
Looking for a SQL Server performance monitoring tool to help you monitor and troubleshoot SQL Server database performance issues and alert you to problems? With so many options available, choosing the right tool can be tricky. Learn more about database performance monitoring benefits, the features you should look for in a monitoring tool, and how to evaluate monitoring solutions.
Get SentryOne eBooks!
In these SentryOne eBooks, you will find useful, hand-picked articles on high-performance techniques for SQL Server that will help give insight into some of your most vexing performance problems.
These articles were written by several of the SQL Server industry's leading experts, including Aaron Bertrand, Paul White, Paul Randal, Jonathan Kehayias, Erin Stellato, Glenn Berry, and Joe Sack.
SQL Performance Tuning
Slow queries, virtualized resource contention, deadlocks, bottlenecks, indexes, and too many scheduled events are all things that can cause SQL Server to run slow or have performance issues.
With SentryOne, you'll be able to target SQL performance issues and resolve performance issues.
SQL Server Views
With SQL Server Views, you can add an extra layer of security and increase performance. Learn how SQL Server Views simplify querying, offer more secure data and better performance, and uncover when to use a view.
Resolving SQL Index Fragmentation Issues
SQL Sentry's Fragmentation Manager helps you make smarter decisions about defragmenting indexes by showing you how to better manage your fragmentation process.
Learn more about SQL Index Fragmentation and how Fragmentation Manager can help you make better decisions about defragmentation operations.
Detect and Resolve SQL Deadlocks
A SQL deadlock arises when two or more tasks block one another by both having a lock on a resource that the other tasks are attempting to lock. There are a few different resources that can lead to a deadlock, such as locks and memory.
Learn more about how to capture and detect SQL Server deadlocks with SentryOne and resolve them with SentryOne Plan Explorer.
Understanding and Resolving SQL Server Blocking
Blocking is inevitable in any relational database platform that uses lock-based concurrency. However, it doesn't have to be difficult to track down and resolve. With SentryOne's block analysis, capture all SQL blocking details based on the configured blocking duration thresholds. You can view blocking chains either in real-time or historically.
SQL Tuning Can Benefit Poorly Performing Databases
SentryOne offers a clear view of SQL Server performance issues to simplify database tuning.
- Built-in performance reports
- Preconfigured & custom baselines
- Side by side performance metrics
- Visualize poor performing queries
- Uncover storage & resource bottlenecks
- System resource usage stats
SQL Trace
SentryOne’s Quick Trace™ functionality allows you to run a full SQL Server trace and view all of the pertinent activity on your server. Quick Trace offers easy to read results with lower overhead and minimal impact
Whether you are inquiring about long running or high-impact queries, or even short queries that can run thousands of times over a short time span, Quick Trace can provide an easy to read graphic view of all SQL activity. While it is similar to SQL Profiler trace and Activity Monitor, it is integrated into one easy to use
Windows Event Logs
Windows event logs are unique files that record important events on your PC. For example, when a user logs into the machine or when an error occurs, it is recorded in the Windows event logs. You can read these logs with Windows Event Viewer.
Event Viewer presents explicit information about important events like programs that should start, but don’t or updates that were not installed as expected on your computer. Learn more about the different types of Windows Event Logs.
SQL Reports Offer Insight into SQL Server Performance
SQL reports are necessary for measuring your servers’ performance, finding trends and even gathering baselines to get a complete picture of your environment. SentryOne makes performance reporting easy and maximizes your valuable time with preformatted SQL Server reports that are available for any metric that SentryOne collects. Learn more about SentryOne reporting.
Monitor SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups
AlwaysOn Availability Groups are a high-availability and disaster-recovery feature introduced with SQL Server 2012, providing enhancements and abilities over database mirroring. An Availability Group protects a set of user databases, supporting up to eight secondary replicas of the primary database. Learn more about AlwaysOn.
Monitoring SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) Performance
Learn more about where to start for monitoring SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). Out of the box, SSAS doesn’t have the necessary logging/tracing set up for effective troubleshooting of the most common problems.
