We performed a comparison between Quest Foglight for Databases and SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Database Development and Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The alarms alert proactively if there are any potential or ongoing issues with the databases that we support. That means we can take preventive or corrective action before the issue becomes a big issue. And the SQL PI features enable us to drill down into performance issues in our databases so that we can improve performance, which is important."
"One of the hardest things to do in database management is to evaluate performance deviation across time. The adaptive baseline that Quest is using is by far the most helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean I use it on a daily basis, but it is something that I have not been able to find in any other tool, at the same level."
"Foglight's Change Tracking capabilities are another huge feature. It is wonderful to be able to do that. People don't realize the amount of information that Foglight gathers from a given server or instance. It gets down to the version of SQL, the disk array, everything that's there. Any change that's made, any upgrade to SQL, shows up on the dashboard almost immediately. You don't know how much time you save just having a tool in your back pocket that does that for you."
"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
"The real-time activity screens are also helpful... if there is something that is running slowly, we can eliminate the database as being an issue and perhaps look at the server, network activity, or something outside of the realm of the database as being the issue."
"We can visualize all the different types of DB servers that we are monitoring in a single pane of glass. It uses a 360-degree overview of the database, for each of those databases that we are monitoring. That includes what kind of resource utilization is happening and what kind of DB parameters are getting monitored, as well as the different types of DB parameters that are being offered for each database type."
"Foglight is also able to help the DBAs proactively fix problems before they become an issue. It provides them with real-time activity screens that help in this regard. The DBAs are able to go to these screens and look at what's happening in real time, and that buys them time. It helps them see problems ahead of time and find solutions to them."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support for older databases and the ability to manage them in a centralized dashboard."
"What I like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that it's a powerful solution that lets me advise customers about performance, and it also gives a lot of supporting information."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can help us identify issues we cannot see manually."
"The platform solves and prevents delays in receiving answers from databases."
"Monitoring is most valuable, and being able to know that there is an issue or problem and I need to go look is also valuable. So, monitoring and learning are the most important features."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network layer, database layer, or elsewhere."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer's most valuable features include the notification of consuming the SQL queries, collecting data, and notifying about managing space and tables."
"The system is not that stable. We have been facing a lot of issues. We built a new store environment of Foglight, an environment for monitoring the Lowe's store servers, which are all Db2 servers. The objective is to monitor 800 Db2 servers in each Foglight instance. Up to 150 Db2 servers, the environment was working fine. The moment it crossed 150 or 160, we started having a lot of stability issues."
"One thing that I would like, and it's probably something that I could set up internally, is something other than a dashboard which I have to look at to know that a server is down. I'd like bells and whistles to go off... If I look at the dashboard I know there's a server down. But if I'm not looking at it, if I'm looking at some other problem, I want to know about it. You can do that, you can use SMSs and alerts to your phone, and I could set it up to handle that, but it would be nice if, out-of-the-box, Foglight did that."
"When holding data for two years for 20 SQL Servers, the reporting becomes sluggish and unresponsive."
"When we decided to go with Foglight, a lot of people stopped using the diagnostics part because it was very intimidating... They still won't use it because they feel it's too intimidating. They will open something up and not know what to do. It's not very user-friendly. You have to click on a lot of stuff to find the information."
"The data model needs improvement when it comes to creating custom reports. That is an area where it needs a bit of improvement. Foglight gathers a lot of information around our databases as part of its monitoring. While I know all this information is in there, trying to pull the metric we want out for custom reports is sometimes hard to find. One nice thing about Foglight is that you can create custom dashboards, which you can easily convert to reports. We would be doing a lot more of that if it weren't for the challenging data model."
"Foglight does have a component that allows you to look at things in real time, but it's not as friendly or as efficient in terms of responsiveness as Quest Spotlight is. Foglight might be lacking in this department."
"I would like the rule development code to be made available so we don't always have to be referred to professional services for custom solutions. For example, if we want to exclude certain databases from a particular rule, we shouldn't have to go to support and to professional services for that solution. If the code and syntax were available, we have resources that could quickly turn something like that around."
"The version that I'm using is not the latest version, so there might have been some improvement, but the OS monitoring is a bit lacking, and the high-availability option is a bit complicated to set up and it doesn't work all the time."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should include more details on how everything works."
"One area where the tool could improve is by adding support for additional databases. For instance, supporting newer databases like Couchbase or MongoDB would be beneficial."
"The solution should add little details on the server so that an independent team could easily do the implementation."
"The areas where it currently lags are in reporting and dashboarding. The reports and dashboards are somewhat static, and we cannot create custom dashboards for specific customer needs."
"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."
"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix. It also depends on the budget of the company."
"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."
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Quest Foglight for Databases is ranked 2nd in Database Development and Management with 10 reviews while SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is ranked 4th in Database Development and Management with 11 reviews. Quest Foglight for Databases is rated 8.6, while SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Quest Foglight for Databases writes "Excels at displaying intensive database queries and enables me to address things before they become real problems". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer writes "Powerful monitoring solution with good technical support". Quest Foglight for Databases is most compared with Quest Spotlight, Oracle Enterprise Manager, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server, Redgate SQL Toolbelt and Toad for Oracle, whereas SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is most compared with SQL Sentry, Quest Spotlight, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server, Redgate SQL Toolbelt and Oracle Enterprise Manager. See our Quest Foglight for Databases vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer report.
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