Too little time, too much to do. Sound familiar? While most DBAs realize that being a proactive DBA is much better than being a reactive DBA, many DBAs don't have the luxury of having enough time to be as proactive as they would like to be. One way to recover more time and become a more proactive DBA is to use SQL Server monitoring software, such as Red Gate's SQL Response.

What does SQL Server monitoring software mean for the DBA?

As a DBA, you know how important it is to monitor how your SQL Server instances are doing. Whether it is something as simple as checking the SQL Server logs, checking if jobs completed successfully, or identifying resource bottlenecks; monitoring SQL Server activity helps you to become aware of issues before they become major problems. SQL Server monitoring software is designed to automatically monitor your SQL Server instances so you don't have to manually monitor them, an often time-consuming process.

The problems of monitoring your SQL Servers without a tool

Without a monitoring tool to do the work for you, most DBAs have to physically monitor their servers, which can include manually reviewing log files, manually checking to see if jobs have run, manually configuring and using native tools such as Performance Monitor and SQL Server Profiler to identify performance bottlenecks, and so on.

If you are manually monitoring your servers, one of two things generally happens. Either you end up spending a large amount of your limited time monitoring your SQL Server instances; this takes away time that could be better spent on less mundane and more interesting tasks. Or you run out of time and aren't able to monitor your instances at all. This can lead to potentially serious problems because you don't know how your servers are behaving. Unexpected downtime or poor performance are two potential consequences of this kind of delay to reacting to your SQL Servers' health. In this case, you have become a reactive, not a proactive DBA.

Problems with Traditional Monitoring Tools

Most SQL Server monitoring software on the market have impediments that make them less than ideal for monitoring your SQL Server instances. These can include:

• High licensing cost per SQL Server instance.
• Difficulties with installation. Many products require that an agent or some other software to be installed on each SQL Server instance you are monitoring. This can make the original installation tedious, upgrades time-consuming, and there is always the risk that the installed agent might introduce unexpected problems on your SQL Servers.
• Difficult and time-consuming configuration. Most SQL Server monitoring software doesn’t work right out of the box. It must first be configured. Not only does this require a learning curve, it requires a lot of time making the actual configurations so they work correctly in your environment. In other cases, if you don't configure alerts correctly, you can be flooded with duplicate and false-positive alerts.
• Hard to learn and administer. Some SQL Server monitoring tools try to offer every conceivable feature you might ever need. While this is good in theory, it can be a problem in day-to-day use of the product. Feature-laden, bloated tools can take a long time to master, are harder to use, and they can get in the way of what you are really trying to do, which is to simply monitor and respond to the health of your SQL Server instances. In other cases, the user interface is so complicated and includes so many flashing lights and graphics that you can't easily figure out what you are seeing.
• Consuming valuable SQL Server Resources. Some SQL Server monitoring tools use excessive resources on the SQL Server instances being monitored. This can be a problem if an instance is already suffering from performance issues.

How does SQL Response work?

SQL Response - which is composed of a management console, a service, and a data repository - can be installed on almost any server. No software needs to be installed on the SQL Server instances you are monitoring. Once installed, SQL Response regularly connects to each of your SQL Server instances, gathering critical information on the availability and performance of your SQL Servers, and storing it in the repository. If any of the data that is collected indicates a problem, an alert is raised, which is displayed on SQL Response's management console. Alerts can also be sent to you via email or text message. Once you are alerted to a problem, you have the opportunity to correct it before it can potentially affect availability or performance.

What makes SQL Response different?

When SQL Response was conceived, it was designed to overcome the most common problems found in other SQL Server monitoring software. For example:

• SQL Response offers low, per-server licensing costs; this makes it affordable to use SQL Response for all of your SQL Server instances.
• SQL Response can be installed in minutes on a single computer. No software needs to be installed for monitored SQL Server instances. When new versions of the software are released, you only have to perform one upgrade.
• SQL Response works directly out of the box. It comes preconfigured with common-sense alerts all ready to go. Once you have used SQL Response over a short period of time and gained experience with it, you always have the option to make any configuration changes you feel would work best for you.
• SQL Response has a very simple and elegantly-designed user interface without any unnecessary information to confuse you. The focus is strictly on monitoring your SQL Servers and viewing alerts about potential problems.
• SQL Response uses minimal SQL Server resources. For routine monitoring, the performance hit is almost non-existent. If you want more in-depth monitoring, the biggest performance hit will be an increase in CPU utilization of no more than 5%. In-depth monitoring is only needed to identify and troubleshoot the more perplexing problems, and can be turned on and off as needed.

If you aren't currently using a SQL Server monitoring tool, or if you have one but are not yet using it because you haven't found the time to install and properly configure it, give SQL Response a try. The trial software download is free, and the installation and configuration are quick and easy.

See how you can rigorously monitor your SQL Servers and become a proactive DBA. What's more, with the time you'll save on monitoring your SQL Servers by both using as intuitive a tool as SQL Response and by reacting to problems sooner rather than later, you'll find you free up office hours to accomplish more tasks during your working day. And this, after all, is what it means to be on the path to becoming an Exceptional DBA.

Want to find out more about what it means to become an Exceptional DBA? Check out Brad McGehee's new eBook, available as a free download when you try out SQL Response.