Grant Fritchey

23 October 2020

Let’s Talk About Build vs. Buy

I have written a nearly 1,000 page book on SQL Server performance tuning. In several chapters through the book, I outline all the necessary metrics you need to monitor your systems. I also show exactly how to put together those metrics in a variety of tools built into your OS and SQL Server itself. I’ve also posted over 1,000 blog posts at my personal blog. Loads of them are how to use various built-in tools to enhance your monitoring of SQL Server. In addition to all this, I also have a ton of classes, videos, articles and more, outlining all of the above. In short, I’ve spent a considerable portion of the last fifteen years or so telling you exactly how to do your own monitoring.

What’s more, my partners and team at Redgate have also done the same thing. You can read this article by Kathi Kellenberger. Here’s one from Kendra Little. Over here is one from Steve Jones.

So, if there’s all this information out there on how to do your own monitoring, why on earth would you need a tool? I mean the knowledge is out there. It’s not secret. Further, when you look at a tool like SQL Monitor, it’s just doing the same stuff you can do for yourself.

Why purchase a tool then?

Time.

Sure, everything you need to know to monitor SQL Server is available to you. Follow those links and you’re golden. However, it all takes time. Time to set up the monitoring. Time to bring the data together somewhere. Time to build the place where you’re storing data. Time to build out reports and intelligent views on the data so that you can correlate counters and metrics from disparate sources. Time to update and maintain all this as new versions of SQL Server are released. Time to build alerting mechanisms on the data so that you can respond to things in a timely manner. Time to build everything over and over as you add new servers to your estate. Time to train your people in building and maintaining your custom tools, because what happens if you’re not there.

That’s all a lot of time.

What you get when you purchase a tool like SQL Monitor is time. Lots of it. All the time we’ve put into building out an efficient mechanism for monitoring your servers, correlating data, reporting, alerting, and the rest, is what you’re purchasing. Also, you’re purchasing the knowledge that we’ve brought to the product. You get all our time so that you can spend your time elsewhere.

We’re not really selling you a product nearly as much as we’re selling you some time back in your day.