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The latest version of SQL Monitor is v8
SQL Monitor 8 makes it easier than ever to manage large environments, as well as helping you quickly diagnose performance issues.
With SQL Monitor 8 you can install one base monitor per location, whether that’s geographically separate datacenters or networks that run separately within one place, which consolidates reporting to a single web interface, without the need to install separate UIs at each location
This means you can monitor all locations accurately from one SQL Monitor dashboard without bandwidth or security being compromised. You can group these locations however you want, and they can be easily scaled (one base monitor can comfortably cover up to 200 servers), so to keep track of your growing estate simply add more base monitors.
What's new in SQL Monitor 8
"Distributed monitoring with SQL Monitor
SQL Monitor now arranges all your Alerts into single expandable sections in your inbox. These groupings allow you to see at a glance where problems are and what to do with them, without them getting lost in the noise of a busy alerting system.
You can then select a group to expand the full list of alerts and explore the cause of the issue.
You may find, for example, one alert is causing lots of noise but isn’t a problem in which case you can turn it off, or alternatively there is something serious you need to act on fast.
New grouped alert inbox in SQL Monitor
With SQL Monitor 8 you are alerted to deadlocks as they happen, giving you the chance to recover any lost processes and put procedures in place to minimize their occurrence in the future.
SQL Monitor supports the extended events deadlock graph and adds a simple, clear visualization so you can see exactly what was affected. With the added benefit of snapshots of historic data from the time of the alert, you can start to build a full picture of what happened and what was affected as a result.
Deadlock visualizations in SQL Monitor
The new Query History Graph helps you to easily and quickly see trends from the impact of queries. It also detects when an execution plan changes and marks it on the timeline, which can warn you where changes have occurred and could cause problems.
This minimizes the time spent chasing “normal problems”, such as regular performance spikes you may not need to worry about, and also helps you remember server patterns – something which is particularly helpful when managing large estates.
Query history graph in SQL Monitor
Blocking processes are now visualized on the overview page in an easy-to-interpret format, so you can see all that occurred during the selected period of time. When clicked you can see details, a visualized chain of the blocking process and any knock-on effects it has caused.
Blocking processes information and visualization in SQL Monitor
Adding to the integration already available for SQL Compare, SQL Monitor now includes deployment information from SQL Change Automation.
SQL Monitor knows which tool carried out the deployment and displays the tool icon on the timeline. You can use this information to see when the deployment occurred and to which database.
Deployment integration with Redgate tools in SQL Monitor
This feature is only available with a SQL Toolbelt license.
SQL Monitor shows you the size of the disk and how much has been used. You will now see a data-usage trend line, based on historical growth data, and when this will likely intersect capacity (and potentially trigger auto-growth).
Through this you can better understand and project your database growth and how long until you need to increase capacity. You can set up alerts to tell you how much extra space you need and when you are likely to need it, which can help with planning and minimizing down time.
Database file growth alerts in SQL Monitor
We have added the ability to bulk-upload server details directly into SQL Monitor so you can quickly add as many servers as you like in one go, rather than one at a time.
Bulk server import in SQL Monitor
You can also use SQL Monitor’s new API to auto-add new servers when they appear, so for example if you have an automated process to spin up SQL Server instances and want to automatically add that to SQL Monitor as part of the process you can now do that without manually entering the details each time.
We typically release updates for SQL Monitor every two weeks.
These include fixes and new features. You can find the release notes on our documentation site.
The easiest way to stay up to date is to look out for the banner that appears at the top of SQL Monitor when an update is available.
But, if you're running SQL Monitor on an environment without internet access, we can notify you by email whenever a new release is available.
Just enter your details to the right, and we'll let you know as soon as a new version is available.
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