Every user wants their applications to run faster. My primary responsibility is to help people with SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization, and I believe there are three important challenges any DBA faces. Today we will discuss how we can detect and diagnose SQL Server Performance Issues with Spotlight Cloud while discussing the three important challenges for today’s DBA: Workload Analyses, Smart Alarms, and Health Checks.
Workload Analysis
When DBAs and Developers start building an application, it usually runs faster as there is no real workload running over it. Often, DBAs and Developers do stress testing with the third-party tools or by simulating the workload. However, honestly, when an application goes live, the entire scenario is very much different. It is near impossible to predict the usage pattern and workload distribution in any application once it starts to grow. This is one area where we often have to depend on a third-party tool to help us out. Spotlight Cloud provides a way to dissect your workload across a range of dimensions and from different perspectives to allow DBAs to pinpoint what is having the greatest impact on specific aspects of their workload.
Smart Alarms
The Internet is full of the solutions to the various problems one can face in SQL Server. The real challenge with DBAs is that they are not able to find the real problem while they are struggling with application performance. Think of it this way – suddenly our application starts running slowly and our customers are starting to call us as they are not able to use the application. It is indeed very embarrassing that we have to wait for our customers to call us when things start to go downhill. Additionally, finding the root cause of the performance problem gets even more difficult as our customers are watching us continuously. Spotlight Cloud enables the start of problem resolution the second an issue is detected by presenting data trends, contextual data, and advisories in the alarm itself. This allows DBAs to shortcut the initial problem triage and begin solving issues immediately, getting to the root cause faster.
Health Checks
One of the biggest challenges of every technical decision maker is the health check. SQL Server application is very vast and the versatility of the features makes a life of the DBA very complicated. All the time, we hear words like Health Checks, but to be very honest, there is no clear definition of health check and there is very little guidance available on this topic on the internet. In addition to SQL Server Performance, DBAs have many other tasks to handle as well. In this situation, they often ignore the proactive SQL Server Health Checks which eventually leads to poor performance of the application during the course of the time. Spotlight Cloud runs a range of proactive checks on databases to look for worrying trends or deviations from best practice. This feature can identify problems in the making and will suggest or take corrective action.
Besides the three key features listed above, Spotlight Cloud also has other important functionalities: Spotlight Tuning Pack, Native Mobile Application and Data History. We will discuss those features in the future blog posts.
Why Spotlight Cloud?
Let me ask you one question: What is the most important factor for your business – Cost or Performance? If your answer is both, I think you are at the right place, and you should consider Spotlight Cloud as an effective tool for detecting and diagnosing SQL Server performance issues. Being able to efficiently track how much compute and storage your cloud workloads consume, allows your business to plan early and be proactive. It is very critical for any business to efficiently analyze workloads and set up smart alarms for an optimal health check. Failing to do proactive monitoring on your application(s) for potential issues can lead to substandard performance.
Spotlight Cloud is an efficient tool that can detect and diagnose SQL Server performance issues. Here is a good overview video of Spotlight Cloud. Because it is a SaaS application, it is really easy to set up and configure. There are no on-premise performance repositories to worry about, and it will keep your performance data for up to a year in order to monitor trends and patterns. Try out Spotlight Cloud and let me know what you think about it in the comments sections.
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
First appeared on Detect and Diagnose SQL Server Performance Issues with Spotlight Cloud