Multiple Monitoring Tools

Voice of the DBA

Part of my Redgate work is with customers who need to monitor their database servers. With estates growing quickly, both in scale and types of database platforms used, keeping an eye on everything can be challenging. Add in the lack of staff growing as quickly are the number of servers, and I find many companies seeking out monitoring tools to better help them manage the entire estate..

When someone evaluates a tool, one of the first questions from many people is about load. They are concerned about the load a tool puts on the system, which is always some amount. Most tools say they use less than 2% of total resources, some might hedge at 5%. Hopefully, there’s no more impact than 5%, though that might seem to high, especially if you have a busy database server already.

I’ve seen several customers who have multiple monitoring systems. Often this is because each tool does something well, but lacks a feature or capability that another provides. Each of the tools needs its own data, which can result in more performance impact.

Is it worth the overhead? If you had a second tool that provided more capabilities, would you ditch one of your tools? I know I work for a vendor that produces a monitoring tool (Redgate Monitor), but I’m genuinely interested in how many of you view the world.

We often make trade-offs, but sometimes we aren’t willing to change. Perhaps you have a tool that works very well doing a certain task, and you don’t want to stop using it. I know I’ve been in that situation, and unless another tool adds that thing, or more things I desire, I’d likely continue to use two tools to accomplish all the things I need done.

Specialized tools have a place, and it can be worth the hassle of using them when a more general tool just doesn’t get all the work done.

Steve Jones

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