SQL SERVER � Performance Monitoring Tool � SQLGrease

July 9, 2019
Pinal Dave
SQL Performance
No Comments
Today�s blog post is the part of the my the Performance Monitoring tools series
which I had written earlier. Today, we are going to see another SQL Server
Performance Monitoring Tool � SQLGrease in the same spirit as I have evolved
others.

My primary aim is to help people with my consulting workshop Comprehensive Database

Performance Health Check. While I help customers with their various SQL Server
performance issues, I often see them struggling to monitor their SQL Server�s
health. One of the primary discussions at the end of the consultation is about
which tool is the best for their situation and how it can prevent them from
encountering more trouble in the future.

SQL SERVER - Performance Monitoring Tool - SQLGrease sqlgrease-800x406

Wait Statistics and Performance

SQL Server wait statistics are my favorite subject and I use this method for
looking at performance issues at my customer�s place. I noticed that SQLGrease also
uses the same approach for SQL Server Performance Tuning and I was immediately
attracted towards it. It can help you to identify the root cause of your complex
database issues.

My Top 3 Favorites of SQLGrease

There are many reasons for liking this tool, however, I would love to expand on 3
of the reasons I like it.

Reason 1: Lighting-Fast Root Cause Diagnosis

SQLGrease gets to the root cause of problems within minutes using query level
performance analysis. SQLGrease collects various essential information and
correlates them together at the query level. This helps it to surface the root
cause analysis of the performance problem in relatively very little time. It
collects the following different information for its analysis:

Execution times
Wait events
Execution plans
Execution plan profiles
IO statistics
Deadlock analysis
Tempdb fills
Session snapshots
Reason 2: Small Footprint at Deployment
The biggest issue, I have with various different performance tuning tools is that
the tool itself is extremely expensive in terms of resource to run on the server.
In the case of SQLGrease, I was delighted to notice that the agent collector
service which collects various data has a small footprint in the network. It is a
windows service that collects and sanitizes data from SQL Server instances and a
single collector service can collect from multiple SQL Server instances. The
collector can run on a server that is configured with as little as 1 GB memory and
1 processor.

Reason 3: Flexible Licensing

In many organizations, it is quite common that users want to measure the
performance of various different SQL Server and not just stick to one Server. In
most of the cases, the biggest challenge with the performance monitoring tool is
that it is not possible to move the licenses from one server/instance to another
one.

The licensing of the SQLGrease are floating and it helps DBA/Developers to monitor
instances which only required help during certain situations. This is great for SQL
Server consultants that need a monitoring platform they can move between clients.
Their subscription-based model is indeed a boon to many who wants to temporary
monitor their SQL Servers.

When SQLGrease is Best For You?

If your primary responsibility in your organizations is to monitor SQL Server
Performance, Security and Deployment, and you are responsible for many SQL Server
instances, this tool is the best for you. If your servers are often struggling with
available resources and you want low overhead monitoring tool, SQLGrease fits the
bill perfectly. It is capable of monitoring your on-premise and cloud deployments.