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Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise

Optimize and tune SQL Server database performance from any device

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SQL Server environments are becoming more complex while remaining a critical component of your application architecture. It’s a struggle to keep up with this continual growth without the right SQL monitoring tools. What if you could proactively manage your SQL Server environment and diagnose database performance issues by viewing the health of all your SQL Server instances on a single screen, anytime, anywhere on any device? You can with the right SQL Server monitoring tool.

With Spotlight® on SQL Server Enterprise, you can manage your SQL Server environment while also gaining visibility into your operating system – Windows or Linux – and also monitor your virtualization infrastructure. Make configuration a breeze with templates, automated alerts and customizable actions. Spend less time fighting fires by accurately diagnosing real-time and historical database performance issues, and focus on more proactive measures like query tuning.

Key benefits

Simplicity without compromise

Quick installation and simple configuration let you start monitoring environments immediately.
End-to-end monitoring

Get a complete picture of everything that affects your SQL Server performance
Mobile capability

Intuitive overviews and mobile device support deliver the data you need where and when you need it.

Features

24x7 monitoring and diagnostics

Agentless monitoring from a centralized diagnostic server with alarms for performance deviations

Powerful root cause analysis

Create multiple diagnostic workflows, including detailed workload analysis and deadlock detection

Incident playback

Rewind dashboards and diagnostic drilldowns to incident occurrence and review it in slow motion

SQL analysis and Xpert tuning

SQL Optimizer integration highlights long-running queries and sub-optimal code for further tuning

Health check and intelligence

Obtain a holistic view of the health of your system and benchmark results with other users

Customize for your environment

Set custom thresholds, create counters and establish rule-based actions on a one-time or recurring basis

Tour

Tour

    Prioritize at a Glance

  • Our Heatmap prioritizes at a glance across all monitored instances.

    • Intuitive Dashboards

  • Follow indicators on context-specific dashboards to the problem source.

    • Monitor and diagnose

  • Operating system diagnostics with SQL Server VNext on Linux

    • Never Miss a Beat

  • Instantly respond to issues with native apps for your mobile device.

    • Wait Stat Analysis

  • Quickly identify what is waiting on resources right down to SQL statements.

    • Workload Analysis

  • Divide workload by host, database, user or SQL statement in a few clicks.

    • Replication Dashboard

  • Watch for any failures or bottlenecks across your replication topology.

    • Analysis Services

  • Monitor instances from the Spotlight dashboard and diagnostic drilldowns.

Specifications

Spotlight client

Before installing the Spotlight client, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:

Platform

1GHz Processor

Memory

1GB RAM recommended

Hard disk space

200MB

This space should exist on a local disk drive rather than a network drive

Operating system
  • Microsoft Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Additional software

SQL Server Client Tools

  • To use the Discovery Wizard to locate SQL Servers on your network, the SQL Server Client Tools must be installed on the Spotlight client. The SQL Server Client Tools can be found on the installation disk for Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008.

Install .NET 2.0 or later

  • To use the Spotlight Report Viewer, .NET 2.0 or later must be installed on the Spotlight client machine.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.
Other requirements
  • CD-ROM drive or internet connection (required for installation only).
  • A monitor capable of supporting a resolution of 1280x1024 or greater

Before installing the Diagnostic Server, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:

Platform

2GHz Dual Core Processor

Memory

300MB

Hard disk space

4GB RAM

If the Diagnostic Server’s connection to the Spotlight Statistics Repository or playback database is interrupted, the Diagnostic Server will cache data to the local disk. In this event, an extra 2MB per hour, per monitored server is required.

Operating system
  • Microsoft Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Additional software
  • .NET 3.5 or later must be installed on the Diagnostic Server machine.

SQL Server Client Tools

  • To use the Discovery Wizard to locate SQL Servers on your network, the SQL Server Client Tools must be installed on the Diagnostic Server. The SQL Server Client Tools are on the installation disk for Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008.
  • To use Spotlight on Analysis Services, the Client Connectivity tools must be installed.

SQL Server Management Tools

  • To use Spotlight on Analysis Services, Spotlight on SQL Server Replication, and Session Trace and SQL Analysis in Spotlight on SQL Server, SQL Server Management Tools must be installed on the Diagnostic Server.
  • The SQL Server Management Tools are available from any SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 edition except SQL Server Express and SQL Server Compact. The version required corresponds to the latest version of SQL Server that you are monitoring. Note, if you are monitoring SQL Server 2000 servers, you need the Management Tools from SQL Server 2005.

SQL Server

Spotlight can diagnose SQL Server instances of the following versions:

  • SQL Server 2005 through 2017

Spotlight on SQL Server also supports MSDE (2000), SQL Express (2005) and SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and SQL Server 2012 Express. Note that use of these versions to host playback or Spotlight Statistics Repository databases is not supported.

Spotlight cannot diagnose earlier versions of SQL Server (version 7.x and earlier).

Spotlight supports all SQL Server sort orders, including case-sensitive and binary sort orders. Spotlight cannot connect to SQL Server instances where the instance name contains non-US ASCII characters.

Operating system

Spotlight on SQL Server can monitor virtual guest machines in a VMware ESX infrastructure. The following versions are supported:

  • VMware vCenter 2.5 (or later)
  • VMware ESX Server 4.0 (or later)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Note: On each monitored instance, Spotlight requires the network setting "File and Print Sharing" to be enabled and any firewall to be configured to:

  • open port 1434 for UDP packets
  • open the SQL Server TCP port (default is 1433)
Virtualization

Spotlight on SQL Server can monitor virtual guest machines in a VMware ESX infrastructure. The following versions are supported:

  • VMware vCenter 2.5 (or later)
  • VMware ESX Server 4.0 (or later)

Spotlight on SQL Server can monitor virtual machines in a Hyper-V® infrastructure. Spotlight supports

  • Hyper-V® 6.2 and above.

Before installing the Spotlight Statistics Repository, ensure your system meets the following minimum requirements:

Database sizing

By default, the size of the Spotlight Statistics Repository is set to 1000MB (data size) and 250MB (log size). These sizes are flexible and can be changed by running the Spotlight Statistics Repository creation script.

The script is located in the install directory as follows:

  • ..\Plug-ins\Diagnostics Server\Scripts
Hard disk space

Approximately 1.2GB for each monitored SQL Server instance and the corresponding monitored Windows host on which the SQL Server instance resides. This estimate assumes default configuration in an average environment. Actual space used will depend on your environment and any data collection/storage configuration changes that are made. For more information, see the Spotlight on SQL Server Sizing Wizard. You can access the wizard from the Spotlight Installation Center. To use Spotlight Reporting and Trending, it is recommended that the Spotlight Statistics Repository is installed on SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012.

Recommended SQL Server version

Installing the Spotlight Statistics Repository on SQL Server 2000 can result in errors being displayed and no data being shown in some views. Installing the Spotlight Statistics Repository on SQL Server 2000 is not recommended.

Note: Due to the size of the Spotlight Statistics Repository, it is recommended that this database is not installed on a SQL Express instance.

Other requirements

The SQL Browser service must be running on the machine where the Spotlight Statistics Repository is installed. Alternatively you can use the host and port number of the (named) SQL Server instance you want to connect to, when creating a connection and connecting to the Spotlight Statistics Repository.

The TCP protocol must be enabled on the instance where the Spotlight Statistics Repository resides.

For more information, see the Spotlight on SQL Server Deployment Guide.

Maintenance

It is highly recommended that regular maintenance is performed on the Spotlight Statistics Repository. The recommended maintenance plan is outlined in the online help and in the Spotlight on SQL Server Deployment Guide.

Before installing the playback database, ensure your system meets the following minimum requirements:

Database sizing

By default, the size of the playback database is set to 500MB (data size) and 125MB (log size).

Hard disk space

Requires approximately 270MB for each monitored SQL Server instance and the corresponding monitored Windows host on which the SQL Server instance resides.

Assumes default configuration in an average environment. Actual space used will depend on your environment and any data collection/storage configuration changes that are made.

For more information see the Spotlight on SQL Server Sizing Wizard, you can access the wizard from the Spotlight Installation Center.

Recommended SQL Server version

Due to the size of the playback database, it is recommended that this database is not installed on a SQL Express instance.

Other requirements

The SQL Browser service must be running on the machine where the playback database is installed. Alternatively you can use the host and port number of the (named) SQL Server instance you want to connect to, when creating a connection and connecting to the playback database.

The TCP protocol must be enabled on the instance where the playback database resides.

For more information, see the Spotlight on SQL Server Deployment Guide

Maintenance

It is highly recommended that regular maintenance is performed on the playback database. The recommended maintenance plan is outlined in the online help and in the Spotlight on SQL Server Deployment Guide.

  • US English

Resources

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DBAs Face New Challenges: Trends in Database Administration
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To gain insight into the evolving challenges for DBAs, Quest commissioned DBTA to survey DBAs and those responsible for the management of the corporate data management infrastructure. The results are in and the thought-provoking findings are now available
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SQL Server on Linux: Why You'll Love It and How to Get Started
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Support and services

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Support Offerings

Find the right level of support to accommodate the unique needs of your organization.