We performed a comparison between Nutanix Database Service and Quest Foglight for Databases 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."One feature that is very good is the backup and validation process that's built into Era."
"We have an enterprise-level backup product that we're required to use, so we don't rely on Era's version. [But] it could be an awesome first-line backup. It's very elegant the way they designed it. It's quick and it doesn't take up nearly as much storage space as traditional backups. It would definitely help to save on tier-one storage."
"It has some very good features. It really works with multiple silos in terms of infrastructure, database updates, and migration. So many things are easy with Era."
"Overall, the solution is very good. It's easy to use and simple to handle many actions, such as VM cloning, testing, and prediction."
"It has wizards that are very helpful in the installation, and it handles automation as well as virtualization once deployed."
"What I like about this solution is that it's more reliable compared to other solutions."
"It saves operation time and day-to-day tasks."
"The Time Machine is the most valuable feature for us. Using it means that we don't have to take regular snapshots, yet we are still able to restore the database quickly in the event of a problem."
"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."
"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."
"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
"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."
"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 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."
"The ability to monitor multiple database platforms streamlines our database operations. The single pane of glass is what we were really after when we picked Foglight. We knew we wanted something that could monitor cross-platform because it does save a lot of time to use the same tool. The one thing that I like with Foglight is that we don't have to install anything locally, like agents, directly on the database servers. That was also a big seller because it simplifies things."
"Their support is helpful, but maybe they need more technical staff. Their response was slow once, but that was the only time it happened, so I'm not sure."
"The graphical user interfaces could be much more user-friendly. They are already user-friendly, but they could be simpler so that we do not need L3 staff to handle them. If they were simpler, we could also have some command center or L1/L1.5 associates do some housekeeping activities on it."
"It should be able to be consumed by other customers because only the enterprise cloud customers are able to buy this software."
"The updating of the database engine is something that can be improved. For example, assume that we are using PostgreSQL out of the box, and it is version 10. If we want to migrate to version 11, 12, or 13, then it is not very easy to do that using Nutanix Era."
"The downside of this solution is that it's more expensive than its competitors."
"I would like to see the SQL compatibility enhanced."
"Patch management is an issue as it regularly causes stability problems."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing structure."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 get a lot of alerts that, while important, are not critical. Then I have to dig in and figure out how to turn alerts off, but not the logging. I want to be able to go back, once we get the other big issues out of the way, and start fine-tuning some of those other areas, but I don't necessarily want to receive an email for all of them."
Nutanix Database Service is ranked 5th in Database Development and Management with 16 reviews while Quest Foglight for Databases is ranked 2nd in Database Development and Management with 10 reviews. Nutanix Database Service is rated 8.4, while Quest Foglight for Databases is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Nutanix Database Service writes "A single solution that provides you new deployments and monitoring as well as everything in one bucket". On the other hand, 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". Nutanix Database Service is most compared with Oracle Enterprise Manager, VMware Postgres, VMware Tanzu GemFire and EDB Postgres Enterprise Manager, whereas Quest Foglight for Databases is most compared with Quest Spotlight, Oracle Enterprise Manager, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server and Redgate SQL Toolbelt. See our Nutanix Database Service vs. Quest Foglight for Databases report.
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