Sql Power Tools has developed a suite of tools to help DBAs better monitor and analyze performance-related problems with SQL Server.
The Sql Power Tools Suite
Sql Power Tools offers a suite of tools to help monitor SQL Server. They include:
- Zero Impact Monitor (base product)
- Zero Impact Service Level Monitor
- Zero Impact Top N SQL Analyzer
- Stealth Blocked Process Monitor
- eData Usage Analyzer
- Sql Loopback Monitor (currently available for UNIX environments, but will be available for Windows in 2004)
Each of these tools work together to help DBAs gather and analyze SQL Server data that is being transmitted between users and SQL Server. This is true whether the environment is two-tier or n-tier. Here’s a look at each tool, what it does, and how it works.
Zero Impact Sql Monitor
The Zero Impact Monitor is a software agent that listens to traffic between end-users and SQL Server. It captures, monitors, and analyzes the performance of all SQL transactions in real-time, which allows you to measure “end-user response” time, “database server response” time, and “client network receive” time. End-user response time is a measurement of 1) the network time it takes for a message to be sent from the client to SQL Server, 2) the database server response time, and 3) the network time it takes for a response to be sent from the SQL Server to the client. Database server response time is a measurement of the difference in time between the first result packet sent to the client by SQL Server and the last SQL Server packet received by the SQL Server from the client. Client network receive time is a measurement of the difference between the time of the last result packet received by the client and the time of the first result packet received by the client.
Many other monitoring products, such as SQL Server’s Profiler, use up vital resources on the SQL Server being monitored. The Zero Impact SQL Monitor, just as its names implies, produces zero impact on the SQL Servers being monitored. This is because the agent software is not installed on the SQL Server’s themselves, but on other devices in your network, such as a Windows 95/98 desktop, an XP Workstation, or Windows 2003 Server box. If you run in a switched environment, the agent can take advantage of port mirroring to monitor your SQL Servers.
Here are some of the key features of Zero Impact SQL Monitor:
- You can capture 100% of Transact-SQL code (none of the SQL is truncated) and performance data in real time. If desired, this data can be archived to a SQL Server database, or exported to other software for additional analysis.
- The real-time monitoring data includes: end user response time, database server response time, and network time. In addition, you can view the Transact-SQL code that is currently being executed by the server. Data can also be grouped for easier analysis, such as by server, by application, by end-user, or even by specific Transact-SQL code.
- Data can be filtered, included, excluded, or reconstructed, as needed, to make your analysis easier.
- Besides collecting this data, real-time or off-line alerts by SQL statements can be created based on the SQL statements being sent between the client and server. This allows you to more quickly identify potential problems or to troubleshoot known issues.
But this is only the base component of the suite. It also includes the following components.