One of the most popular questions I often receive during Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check is which are the third-party tools I use in my daily routine and I recommend them. Here is the updated list for October 2020 of all the tools which I recommend.
Tools I Use October 2020
Here are the different tools and their download links along with it.
- Idera SQL DM for MySQL (Download)
- SQLGrease (Download)
- Quest (Database Training)
- Melissa (Download)
- RedGate (Download)
Idera SQL DM for MySQL
In the real world, the biggest responsibility of the DBA is to keep the data safe and also make it available as fast as possible for the end-users. However, when we use open source tools, it is very difficult to find a good tool that monitors the performance of the database without hampering the performance of the database. I am personally very impressed with the Idera SQL Diagnostic Manager for MySQL.
Below are the salient features of the Idera DM:
- Monitor in real-time for corrective action and issues resolution
- Track and compare all changes to MySQL or MariaDB configuration files
- Monitor, alert, and kill locked or long-running SQL queries in real-time
- Monitor Amazon RDS, MariaDB, or Amazon Aurora including OS and log files
- Find top 10 queries across MySQL/MariaDB servers based on execution time
- Monitor Amazon RDS, Azure Database, Google Cloud SQL, and Oracle Cloud Service
Call to Action Download Idera DM
Quest Database Training Days
Back by popular demand, the biggest names in database technology will again be providing hands-on database performance training. You’ll have another opportunity to learn from Microsoft Certified Master Brent Ozar, Oracle ACE Janis Griffin, and Performance Tuning Expert Pinal Dave about the most challenging and in-demand topics for SQL Server and MySQL.
You can register for the sessions over here Quest Database Training Days
SQLGrease for Simplicity
Using query level performance analysis, SQLGrease gets to the root cause of problems within minutes. Not everyone likes to pay upfront a large amount to own a performance optimization tool. SQLGrease is preferred by many clients who prefer subscription-based tools just for SQL Server.
Below is a brief summary of the type of information SQLGrease collects:
- Execution times
- Wait events
- Execution plans
- Execution plan profiles
- IO statistics
- Deadlock analysis
- Tempdb fills
- Session snapshots
Call to Action Download SQLGrease
Melissa for SQL Server Data Quality
The most common data quality issue I see in the industry is about inaccurate data, outdated contacts, incomplete records, and duplicates. Without clean and accurate data, it’s hard to find new customers, better understand existing customers’ needs, and increase the lifetime value of every customer – today and tomorrow. Melissa’s Data Quality Components for SSIS is a unique set of global data quality tools for Microsoft’s integration and ETL (extract-transform-load) solution.
Here is what we can achieve easily with this tool:
- Achieve better insight with clean, accurate customer data
- Easily onboard, apply standards, enforce rules, cleanse, and enrich Big Data
- Run data quality on-premise and in the Cloud
Call to Action Download Melissa
RedGate for Monitoring
In the industry, there’s a need to ensure that the operations teams have full visibility of your estate, not just your production servers. If your engineering teams have access to secure development and testing servers, deployment issues are caught before they reach production. I strongly encourage you to read this whitepaper which discusses:
- Maintaining availability and security at all stages of the development process.
- Keeping visibility and communication flowing between DBA and development teams.
- Removing bottlenecks.
- Identifying and responding to deployment-related performance issues.
- Keeping customers happy and their data secure.
Call to Action Download RedGate Whitepaper
I strongly encourage you to check out the tool which I use for a variety of tasks. Do let me know if you use any of the above tools and share your experience with all of us. The list is updated as of October 2020. You can always follow me on Twitter.
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
