RESEARCH & RESOURCES

Dell Software Upgrades Spotlight Family

Dell adds two new free tools for SQL Server database monitoring; Toad for SQL Server enhances database management

Note: TDWI’s editors carefully choose vendor-issued press releases about new or upgraded products and services. We have edited and/or condensed this release to highlight key features but make no claims as to the accuracy of the vendor's statements.

Dell Software has bolstered its longtime commitment to the SQL Server database market with its release of several of new management tools, including Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise 10.0, the cornerstone of the company’s SQL Server offerings. The new product releases provide affordable, easy-to-use SQL Server database management and monitoring features.

Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise 10.0, the company’s SQL Server database monitoring tool, provides several new capabilities, including:

  • Increased flexibility for alarms and notifications, including the ability to execute Powershell scripts

  • The ability to monitor index fragmentation

  • Support for Android devices; Spotlight now boasts native mobile coverage on the top mobile platforms including IOS, Android, and Windows mobile, as well as a browser-based version

  • Integration for LiteSpeed customers, enabling users to receive alarms and notifications related to their SQL backups directly within Spotlight 

Spotlight Healthcheck, a free community tool, helps SQL users gauge the health of their entire SQL Server Deployment. Spotlight Healthcheck delivers:

  • A free health check to determine the status of the entire SQL Server infrastructure from a performance and system perspective, removing the worry and risk of unplanned outages

  • Infographics to present the highest priority items for fast and efficient resolution

  • The ability to keep up to date with one new free health check per month

Spotlight Freemium Edition, another new free tool, integrates as a plug-in to the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and lets users work with Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise features at no cost. With Spotlight Freemium Edition, users can:

  • Deploy real-time monitoring across their SQL Server portfolios, tracking the most critical performance criteria and instantly notifying users when issues arise

  • View snapshots of all monitored instances using intuitive heat-map technology with specific focus on high priority issues

  • Leverage capabilities in conjunction with a proactive system health check from Spotlight Healthcheck for a view of SQL performance

New Spotlight Essentials Site Gathers Resources

A rebranded version of ProjectLucy.com, www.SpotlightEssentials.com, places all the essential components of a complete SQL monitoring and diagnostics solution in a single place while providing insights from collective intelligence gathered across the entire Spotlight Essentials community. This collective intelligence engine for SQL Server built by the SQL Server Community includes:
  • Access to Spotlight Healthcheck

  • Access to Spotlight’s Collective Intelligence feature that enables users to benchmark how their SQL Server implementation stacks up against the entire Spotlight Essentials user base

  • Access to Spotlight Freemium Edition

Additional Dell Software SQL Server Releases

Toad for SQL Server 6, a performance tuning tool for SQL, adds several new features in this release, including:

  • Improvements to the Multi Schema Compare functionality

  • Improvements to the SSMS plug-in

  • Enhanced change requests and issues resolution

Optimizer for SQL Server enables users to find and optimize the most inefficient SQL in code or across a workload. The new release includes:

  • Enhancements to the FindSQL module to help locate the most resource-intensive SQL in the server

  • Enhanced Index Advice engine

  • Ability to display missing index information

For more information, visit www.dell.com.

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