Quest Software Introduces Foglight for SQL Server at PASS

Sheila Molnar and I had the opportunity to meet with Quest Software’s Ari Weil, product manager for SQL Server performance products, and Christian Hasker, director of product management and marketing, at PASS to discuss two new product releases: Spotlight on SQL Server 6.0 and the debut of Foglight for SQL Server.

Spotlight on SQL Server 6.0 now offers business intelligence (BI) monitoring, including monitoring and diagnostic functionality for SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). This release provides automated CPU diagnosis for both SQL Server and Windows in one place. In addition, SQLServerPedia information has been integrated into Spotlight for SQL Server, providing you with more information about the performance problems you’re encountering, as well as information about how to use the product.

Quest Software also announced the debut of Foglight for SQL Server, its remote performance monitoring and diagnostic software, at PASS. This product is web-based and comes with built-in dashboards, workflows, and alerts that expose data at all levels of your organization. According to Hasker and Weil, Foglight helps you quickly troubleshoot performance issues by objectively providing you with information about the query and cause of the problem. And like Spotlight on SQL Server, Foglight provides links to SQLServerPedia content. So how does Foglight for SQL Server work?

"Foglight for SQL Server is a fully remote special purpose monitor (SPM).  The SPM is a self-contained entity that supports download and go (so if you don’t want to leverage the entire Foglight enterprise solution, but do want to leverage all of the advanced management and monitoring capabilities it provides), and provides all the information a DBA would need to diagnose and resolve a performance issue in a presentation that makes sense to a SQL Server DBA," explains Weil.  "Plus, because it’s fully remote, mass deployments are a simple endeavor, and there are no change management processes to address."

Weil says, "What’s unique about Foglight for SQL Server, however, is that it’s the first SPM available that leverages all of the strengths of Foglight in a fully-remote, domain-specific, and SQL Server friendly fashion.  It can be fully installed and configured via a simple wizard, and all of the day-to-day administration, configuration, and deployment activities a DBA may want to perform are available in intuitive wizard-style interfaces that DBAs can understand and use easily."

You can learn more about Spotlight for SQL Server and Foglight for SQL Server, as well as download free 30-day trial versions of these releases, by visiting the Quest Software website.