Foglight for Databases Reviews

I am currently using Foglight for Databases with real-time monitoring only.

We use this tool for monitoring purposes only. Frequently, we monitor the tool by logging into all servers and fetching the output using queries. We can check the homepage of Foglight for Databases and verify whether all databases are running fine or not. We can differentiate based on different types of databases such as Oracle databases, MS SQL, and MySQL, and we can monitor them separately as well.

Foglight for Databases enables me to monitor multiple database platforms. It is currently monitoring MS SQL databases and Oracle databases for me. We can divide the databases based on types and monitor using those specific database types only.

Using Foglight for Databases will drastically reduce the employee size. Without Foglight for Databases, we have to use multiple employees for monitoring different databases. By using Foglight for Databases, we can significantly reduce those employees, thus saving their salaries.

Foglight for Databases saves costs when performing root cause analysis.

Foglight for Databases is a user-friendly tool. On the homepage, we can see whenever it is connected to all production and disaster recovery databases, and it is easy to monitor on the homepage itself. It displays indications such as CPU utilization, load average, and session details including the number of sessions and active sessions. It shows details such as critical outages with three indications: warning in orange color and critical outage in red color. It also displays error messages regarding what errors have occurred in that particular database, allowing us to fetch and find the error and solve the issue as soon as possible.

By clicking the database by server name, it can be divided to show the report on a node-by-node basis. In that report, we can see multiple data such as the users connected to the database, the SQL running, and how much time it has been taking. We can also see the output in pie charts, making it very easy to analyze.

Foglight for Databases is easy to monitor, and we can fetch the report node-by-node. We can obtain all other database information such as backup information, table space size information, disk group size, ASM storage, and SP file parameter files. We can directly fetch everything in Foglight rather than using commands in the server itself. Report generation is also easier in Foglight, and using this, we can optimize performance and queries.

Foglight for Databases is very useful; however, the negative side we face is that customer care support is not frequent. If any issues related to Foglight arise, we cannot reach customer care support as soon as possible. It takes much longer compared to other third-party tools, and that is a major issue we are facing with Foglight for Databases.

Foglight for Databases is good for monitoring, and we can fetch problematic issues and queries. However, the only main drawback is the customer care support. It is available only during the general shift, so if any issue occurs after 6:00 p.m. or before 9:00 a.m., there is usually no one to handle it. I think there are only two or three people handling customer care for Foglight for Databases.

I have been using Foglight for Databases for nearly two to two and a half years.

I did not have any issues with Foglight for Databases.

Foglight for Databases is very useful; however, the negative side we face is that customer care support is not frequent. If any issues related to Foglight arise, we cannot reach customer care support as soon as possible. It takes much longer compared to other third-party tools, and that is a major issue we are facing with Foglight for Databases.

Foglight for Databases is good for monitoring, and we can fetch problematic issues and queries. However, the only main drawback is customer care support. It is available only during the general shift, so if any issue occurs after 6:00 p.m. or before 9:00 a.m., there is usually no one to handle it. I think there are only two or three people handling customer care for Foglight for Databases.

For customer support regarding Foglight for Databases, I would rate it a three out of ten.

Before going with Foglight for Databases, we were using inbuilt services in Oracle databases only. We could utilize certain queries and services in Oracle to fetch and find problematic solutions, and we worked in that format only.

Foglight for Databases saves costs when performing root cause analysis.

Using Foglight for Databases will drastically reduce the employee size. Without Foglight for Databases, we have to use multiple employees for monitoring different databases. By using Foglight for Databases, we can significantly reduce those employees, thus saving their salaries.

For intensive database queries, Foglight for Databases is useful. If any abnormal activity occurs such as sessions, CPU load average, or any kind of issue on the database side, we can fetch what the problematic query is, who runs that query, and what the issue is. We can then gather that output and optimization query to send to the application team.

Monitoring different aspects such as the operating system, hybrid clouds, hardware, and databases across different platforms is important because at one point, we can monitor different types of operations such as the operating system side and the database side. If we are using Oracle cluster, we can fetch information regarding the cluster, ASM info, and everything else. We can monitor everything in one single point, and it is very useful to us.

Foglight for Databases is the best tool for monitoring all aspects such as database, backup information, storage information, and operating system side. Everything is very easy to analyze, and it throws error and warning messages as soon as it completes the tasks. It is very useful for monitoring. However, the only issue is customer care support.

I rate this review an eight out of ten.

Monitoring databases is a major use case for Foglight for Databases. We use Foglight for Databases to display intensive database queries.

Foglight for Databases is not a tool that you use to see before a problem happens. However, after we have an issue such as downtime, service failure, or performance issues on the database, we use it to identify the queries that are causing problems, maybe a stored procedure, identify the user that is running that query, the machine where that query is coming from, and do our job as database administrators to optimize the query.

When using Foglight for Databases for monitoring databases, it enables me to drill down and see what is causing the issue if something does not look right. We often use it to drill down and see how long something has happened for, especially for performance tuning, looking at how long any current issue has run for, identify bottlenecks, and get recommendations, because Foglight for Databases gives recommendations on some levels. We use those recommendations to improve or optimize the system.

The best features of Foglight for Databases should be the real-time dashboard and the overview dashboard.

I find the overview and real-time dashboards the most beneficial in Foglight for Databases. For example, with the overview dashboard, I could know what is happening on the database in real-time. Most especially when it comes to blocking sections, I can see if the blocking sections are increasing and then take actions. With the real-time dashboard, I can see performance on a bigger scale, including CPU usage, memory usage, and general performance.

In terms of scalability with Foglight for Databases, I think the tool is somewhat robust compared to other monitoring tools that I have used. I would say it is somewhat rigid to understand if you are a beginner, and it might take a while to understand how to go about using the tool, which requires that training must be done. I would not say there are significant limitations or scalability issues with it.

Besides scalability and customization aspects, I think with the newer version of Foglight for Databases, there are many bugs that need addressing. We encountered instances where it was not even monitoring databases at all or giving us false alerts, which impacts our usage of the application. So I would say that needs improvement, as it leads to confusion about whether databases are down or if the alerts are accurate.

I have been working with Foglight for Databases for about three years.

I have had stability issues, crashes, downtimes, and performance issues with Foglight for Databases in this recent version I have been using. I have not experienced many issues with it in other organizations. However, with the latest version, we have had many crashes, sometimes it stops working entirely, and it can take days to restart the service. Therefore, I think it is an issue related to the new version that has been upgraded.

In terms of scalability with Foglight for Databases, I think the tool is somewhat robust compared to other monitoring tools that I have used. I would say it is somewhat rigid to understand if you are a beginner, and it might take a while to understand how to go about using the tool, which requires that training must be done. I would not say there are significant limitations or scalability issues with it.

I use the vendor's premier support for Foglight for Databases. On occasions when we have issues, we always call Quest, and they come on the call to help us out.

I would rate tech support on a scale of one to ten as a six. The reason I give it a six is that most of the time we have an issue, the support seems time-framed. Even if the issue is not resolved, they often want to get off the call because their time has elapsed, which leads us to go back and forth on the same issue until we eventually get it solved.

Prior to adopting Foglight for Databases, I previously used other solutions of the same kind, including Dynatrace and Ash viewer.

I decided to switch to Foglight for Databases because, as I mentioned earlier, it is more robust and gives more insights compared to the other tools I have used. However, the application's robustness makes it somewhat hard for beginners to understand how it works, which requires additional training to ensure everyone can adjust and fully utilize it.

I evaluated other solutions before choosing Foglight for Databases. The decision to go with Foglight for Databases stemmed from its robustness and the insights it provides compared to other applications and tools.

My experience with the deployment process of Foglight for Databases was challenging because the installation was done on a Linux environment instead of Windows. With Linux, we faced many configuration and permission issues, particularly ensuring that the agent server and management server could communicate with the database server. There was much back-and-forth in getting the installation fully set up before we started using it.

A consultant was used for the deployment of Foglight for Databases, and I think he was from Egypt, but I cannot remember his country exactly.

I would not say Foglight for Databases saves me cost when performing root cause analysis because, based on what I know, payments are made upfront. Regardless of what I use the tool to do, you have to make payment upfront for the license and support, and then you use it based on whatever issues that arise. So in terms of payment or fees, I do not think it matters.

Prior to adopting Foglight for Databases, I previously used other solutions of the same kind, including Dynatrace and Ash viewer.

I decided to switch to Foglight for Databases because it is more robust and gives more insights compared to the other tools I have used. However, the application's robustness makes it somewhat hard for beginners to understand how it works, which requires additional training to ensure everyone can adjust and fully utilize it.

I evaluated other solutions before choosing Foglight for Databases. The decision to go with Foglight for Databases stemmed from its robustness and the insights it provides compared to other applications and tools.

My impressions of Foglight for Databases' ability to help me monitor a variety of aspects such as the OS, hybrid clouds, hardware, and databases across different platforms have been great so far. I have used it in multiple organizations, and my impression is that it is a tool that every organization should use or buy into because they understand its value.

Based on my experience with Foglight for Databases, I recommend running it on a Windows server, as it is much more flexible compared to Linux. Additionally, trainings should be conducted after installation so that everyone can understand how to use the application and utilize it fully. I would rate this review a seven out of ten.

My use case for Foglight for Databases is basically to track performance.

Foglight for Databases allows us to save up to four months of data, enabling us to track performance data for at least one quarter. It tracks everything including Apache and IAS databases. We do not track Cosmos because Microsoft itself provides a good alert system for that with a one-month overview.

Real-time activity data from Foglight for Databases provides alerts. While we have it set up, we don't use it much for live activities because we already have alerts set up inside our other monitoring tools, such as LogicMonitor.

Foglight for Databases enables us to monitor multiple database platforms. We track various databases including Postgres, MySQL, SQL, PaaS, and MI. We are aware of new support for Scylla, but we haven't implemented it yet. We don't track Cosmos because Microsoft provides a better solution.

We use Foglight for Databases to display intensive database queries. We receive alerts and train our LLMs, but everything is still in testing and not live yet because we don't want to expose our data.

Foglight for Databases does help us drill down to see what causes issues, but it can sometimes misattribute slow running procedures to database performance when it could be a network issue.

There has undoubtedly been an increase in speed for diagnosing and resolving issues with Foglight for Databases. I give it a rating of ten out of ten because it effectively saves us memory and resources.

The room for improvement for Foglight for Databases is primarily related to its cost. We pay a hefty amount and only use it for our production servers, not for non-production environments.

Currently, we don't use the Angular UI in Foglight for Databases to proactively alert us for long-running queries. We have a different set of systems, although we are working on some in-house LLM models.

I don't find Foglight for Databases to be very scalable. There are other tools in the market that do the same for less money.

I have been using Foglight for Databases for almost one year.

Stability-wise, I rate Foglight for Databases around a nine out of ten. Although we had one significant issue, they were generally reliable.

I don't find Foglight for Databases to be very scalable. There are other tools in the market that do the same for less money.

From one to ten, I would rate scalability for Foglight for Databases at a three or four from my perspective regarding its price point.

From one to ten, I would rate the technical support of Foglight for Databases a ten because they respond effectively, regardless of the time or day.

We haven't used any other solutions to compare Foglight for Databases with. Before this, we developed our in-house alerts, which are live, but SQL Server only allows us to keep logs for maybe two or three weeks.

We use Foglight for Databases to display intensive database queries. We receive alerts and train our LLMs, but everything is still in testing and not live yet because we don't want to expose our data.

Overall, I would rate Foglight for Databases at eight point five to nine, factoring in that the pricing weighs it down compared to less expensive alternatives I've explored.

I would definitely recommend Foglight for Databases if budget is not an issue. Although it's necessary to be cautious about dependency on tools within Azure, it stays as a top option if resources allow.

I use Foglight for Databases mostly to resolve issues when the dev team and network teams contact me. Foglight for Databases provides real-time activity monitoring and helps to determine potential issues. I can analyze and copy out the exact query from Foglight for Databases and share it with the teams involved. When anything comes up, they contact me to check database activities. I log on to Foglight for Databases to see the activities and queries causing the issue, or if it's the CPU, workload, or other factors, and I explain it to them. If necessary, I ask the team about the importance of running queries to decide if they could be stopped to fix the issue. I do use Foglight for Databases to display intensive database queries.

I appreciate Foglight for Databases because it shows current issues and allows me to choose any date and time to review past activities, helping to explain potential database queries, blockages, and other concerns. I can take real-time snapshots that are transparent for both the user and the team requesting information. It enables drilling down to see what's causing issues with features such as workload, IO, CPU, and network indicators.

I would appreciate more hands-on teaching or sessions to see if any new features have been added, especially as we move towards AI and automation. I would also appreciate better AI training for my team and me.

I have been using Foglight for Databases since 2022 when I joined TransUnion.

I have never seen any lagging or crashing with Foglight for Databases. Each time I open it, I can access it directly. If I have to select a time range, it appears immediately when selected.

I find the scalability of Foglight for Databases to be very useful and helpful.

I opened a case with Foglight for Databases once because some of the databases were not being displayed on the interface or in the tool. I had to contact them, and the issue resulted from the certificate problem that I mentioned.

I have not really used any alternatives to Foglight for Databases, except for in-built tools such as SQL Profiler Activity Monitor to diagnose or see what's happening with the databases.

The initial deployment of Foglight for Databases is not difficult; I just had to become familiarized by attending sessions and then carry on. On my end, it requires some maintenance; one time it was not active due to a login issue, which was corrected, and then I always perform patching to update the encrypted connection certificate.

I cannot comment on pricing because that is handled by the administration team. They are the ones who manage the pricing and licensing.

I have not really worked with other extended tools, so I cannot compare them, but I know that Foglight for Databases is up to speed.

Within that time, I have had two or three sessions from the Foglight for Databases team that briefed me on new features that have been added to the tool. By next month, I will have been working in my current field overall for four years. When using Foglight for Databases for monitoring databases, it enables me to drill down and see what's causing the issue if something doesn't look right. It has all these excellent features, ranging from the workload and IO to CPU and network, and it tells me exactly what I need to see when I drill down to the point that I need. I do not find anything I dislike about Foglight for Databases. All I think could be added is more hands-on teaching or sessions to see if they have added any new features, since we are moving more to AI and automation to ensure we are abreast with the current graphical interface.

When anything comes up, they try to contact me to check a database or anything that is happening. That is one of my favorites; I log on to Foglight for Databases and then see the activities and probably see the query that is causing the issue or the database in question, or if it's the CPU or the workload or anything of that sort, and then I explain it to them. If it's a query that a dev team member is running, I can ask them to know the importance and if that could be terminated to fix the issue. I have given Foglight for Databases an overall rating of nine.

Foglight for Databases is used for database monitoring across all SQL servers and Oracle databases. The monitoring covers database health, deadlocks, long-running queries, disk space usage, historical usage of active sessions, data growth, log file growth, cluster health, and CPU memory metrics.

Foglight for Databases provides both real-time data and historical views. The real-time activity data is used for alerts and historical data is reviewed for trend analysis.

Alerts have been set up in Foglight for Databases for long-running queries and blocking sessions. The tool is used to check for intensive database queries, including resource and CPU-intensive queries, to identify which queries are causing high CPU, wait times, or high memory usage.

When the application team reports that a job is running slow, I monitor the job or query from Foglight for Databases to determine where it is getting stuck or why it is performing poorly. I can check for missing indexes and review the execution plan. If missing indexes are identified, they can be created to improve performance. The tool helps significantly from a performance perspective.

Issues and their root causes can be identified through the GUI mode in Foglight for Databases. Foglight for Databases enables monitoring of multiple database platforms, including Oracle and MS SQL databases. The tool is deployed solely for monitoring, using real-time monitoring and historical data views for application support and database support operations.

The most valuable feature of Foglight for Databases is a centralized location where all reports can be accessed, including session information and execution plans. There is no need to remember specific queries or DMVs; the GUI provides the desired results directly.

When blocking occurs, users begin to experience access issues. Upon receiving notification, I can kill the blocking query, allowing users to regain application access and preventing business impact.

Locating data using the Angular UI of Foglight for Databases is straightforward. There is no need to remember commands; the GUI is simple and intuitive.

Overall, Foglight for Databases is reliable and helps with generating alerts and monitoring database health and historical data in database operations.

An improvement was observed in Foglight for Databases regarding the automatic closure of alerts or incidents once the issue is resolved. Previously, incidents were not automatically closed, but this has been fixed. From my experience, I have not encountered other significant difficulties. The tool could be somewhat more user-friendly, as proper knowledge is required to set up servers and use it effectively.

I have been working with Foglight for Databases for approximately four years.

Foglight for Databases receives a rating of nine in terms of scalability. I have used it for Oracle and SQL databases, but I am not certain if it supports all databases, which is why the rating is nine rather than ten.

I do not communicate frequently with technical support for Foglight for Databases, as upgrades and maintenance are handled by my lead. I have never contacted support.

Before Foglight for Databases, basic SQL Server database monitoring was performed using SQL native tools with no external applications. By the time I began working, Foglight for Databases was already implemented.

I am not aware of the pricing and licensing details for Foglight for Databases. I have set up Foglight monitoring for servers, but I am uncertain about the licensing aspect.

Documentation for Foglight for Databases setup for new servers is used for implementation. The tool generates database permissions and provides a ready-made database permission script that can be executed on the SQL Server to automatically grant the required permissions. The documents used for setup may have been provided by Foglight for Databases or created internally, but the permission script was provided by Foglight for Databases and functions effectively.

Foglight for Databases provides real-time data that is invaluable for analyzing ongoing issues with database servers. I give this product a review rating of ten.

Foglight for Databases serves multiple purposes in my organization, with the primary use being the multi-database aspect, where I can have the status and availability of all databases in a single view. Currently, on a daily basis, this means staying alert to the alerts that Foglight provides. With the additional complement of Performance Investigator, it has been of great help to evaluate issues that require historical information and investigation, which is quite solid in that regard.

Currently, we have a system that entered production this year, and Performance Investigator has been invaluable in evaluating response times, especially outside business hours, and in directing the development team to which queries have problems and how to optimize them.

Thanks to Foglight for Databases, we have had a positive impact in our area. We are a very small team with only one database administrator, and if we wanted to go deeper, we would need people with different flavors of databases. This tool helps us have a better overall vision of all types of databases. Specifically, we have had performance issues where we identified users who executed procedures without declaring them, which leaves us with an audit trail that helps in decisions regarding access or processes that run outside appropriate hours.

In terms of how it has positively impacted my organization, Foglight for Databases has continually improved, as the number of cases specifically related to performance and response times has decreased. Another area where it has helped significantly is now that we have grown and are working with cloud topics and integrating those services. Regarding improvements we have seen, they are evident in monitoring through dashboards, which are very fast for analysis.

I have been using Foglight for Databases for approximately three years. Initially, we started with the Oracle module, and now we have incorporated three engines that we manage, which are MySQL and SQL Server.

One of the best features that Foglight for Databases offers me is that it is multi-platform with respect to databases. It is not limited to a single type and offers scalability with any type of database that can be incorporated into the company, providing analysis tools quickly regarding server and database performance, which makes it very useful within the IT area.

I would also highlight the reporting aspect in Foglight for Databases, which can be customized and provides a lot of information. There is so much information that you have to be very thorough. It is not really a drawback, but given that there is so much information, you have to be very careful about what information you need, because Foglight has much to offer.

Overall, I strongly highlight Performance Investigator for the different dimensions it handles. It is very useful for audit topics and performance, especially the historical aspect, which allows us to manage month-to-month periods and identify our bottlenecks during the month. It is a great help for the database area because it is focused and you can extract a lot of information related to what you need. Regarding availability, it has also been of great help in alerting us in case of any type of unavailability and in sending email notifications.

Primarily, given that Foglight for Databases is so multi-platform with different databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL, the reports are very specific for each engine. An improvement could be at the availability level for all the services we have registered at the database level, regardless of the engine, providing availability or backup information in a report that covers all databases, not necessarily by database, but in a general report.

I have been using Foglight for Databases for approximately three years. Initially, we started with the Oracle module, and now we have incorporated three engines that we manage, which are MySQL and SQL Server.

Foglight for Databases is entirely a stable solution and very useful for dealing with contingencies in daily operations.

The scalability of Foglight for Databases has been good and will continue to be so, because it does not close the possibility of other engines or other flavors of databases according to the company's needs.

I have had little need for support, but when I have needed it, it has worked well.

I would rate customer support with a nine, primarily because I do not give it a ten since I feel that more information or training is needed to better leverage the tool.

Before implementing Foglight for Databases, we worked with Oracle databases and acquired Spotlight and Toad. With the growth of the project, new databases such as SQL Server and MySQL were added, and others could be added in the future. We still use Spotlight only for Oracle, but it is limited to that database. Foglight helped us achieve greater growth in monitoring.

I have had a good experience with the licensing costs of Foglight for Databases, as we have a provider who has given us good prices, and so far we have not had any cost problems. Regarding configuration, we have support from a provider in Chile that has met expectations so far.

Instead of evaluating several products, I evaluated within the Quest brand what could help us according to our needs, and Quest as a brand completely fulfilled those needs with Foglight for Databases.

Instead of evaluating several products, I evaluated within the Quest brand what could help us according to our needs, and Quest as a brand completely fulfilled those needs with Foglight for Databases.

I have had a good experience with the licensing costs of Foglight for Databases, as we have a provider who has given us good prices, and so far we have not had any cost problems. Regarding configuration, we have support from a provider in Chile that has met expectations so far.

Instead of evaluating several products, I evaluated within the Quest brand what could help us according to our needs, and Quest as a brand completely fulfilled those needs with Foglight for Databases.

I would say that you should evaluate the tool in terms that it might initially seem like a higher cost, but it brings many benefits. For me, one of the most useful components has been Performance Investigator, because it completely helps with bottlenecks or performance problems quickly, evaluating whether the root is at the server level, at the development level, or at the database level.

I want to compliment the tool, especially the support of Performance Investigator. My overall rating for this product is a ten.

I primarily use the solution for database monitoring, specifically for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, SAP HANA, and AWS Redshift.

I find it extremely helpful to use Foglight to triage any database issues, specifically performance issues using what Foglight calls PI investigator. It is a very powerful workload analysis tool that helps me understand where bottlenecks are. It allows me to see performance issues as end users report them. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It enables me to obtain information quicker and easier compared to manually compiling it.

Foglight provides us with a near-real-time activity database. It's not 100% real-time. It has less than a minute latency. It allows us to see performance issues as end-users report them. 

We started seeing benefits pretty much immediately. 

We use Foglight to display intensive databases. However, it's not something we monitor regularly. It's only something we kind of dig into as we troubleshoot and triage issues. It does help us determine potential IT help issues. 

When we use Foglight, we find it helps drill down holistically into potential bottlenecks. It helps us to see what is going on in the database.

Foglight allows us to monitor multiple database platforms. We use, for example, Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres, Amazon Redshift, and SAP HANA. It gives us insight into our entire landscape of production workloads in near real-time.

The solution saves costs when performing root cause analysis. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It allows us to obtain information quicker and easier than by manually compiling information.

It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms. 

I've been talking to their product development team about enhancements that I would like to see in very specific cartridges. I've been discussing these enhancements, however, nothing has materialized from these conversations. Something that could be improved is the integration of customer feedback into the product roadmap to build the features and functionality that real customers could benefit from.

I have been using the solution for probably three plus years now. I've used it since the SolarWinds incident.

The platform is very stable. We have not run into any performance issues on the platform.

It is easy for me to manage and easy to scale up.

We use support when we come across issues, and they are very responsive. I am pretty happy with the quality of service that they provide. We do not pay for any premium support.

Positive

I used to use SolarWinds monitoring prior to their security breach. I also use Oracle Enterprise Manager in parallel to Quest Foglight currently. We switched to Quest due to a security breach in SolarWinds. 

It was relatively easy to deploy the solution.

With the help of professional services, it took three to four weeks for the initial setup.

We have one person on our team handling the deployment on our end.

We're running installed software, so it does require maintenance. When there are upgrades, we have to do them. When we add new technologies that we want to monitor, we have to add the cartridges. We're managing the platform ourselves.

Quest product support assisted with the implementation.

The pricing is palatable. We've already done one renewal and we are in our second contract. We're happy thus far.

I would give the solution a nine out of ten. 

I recommend doing due diligence, looking for best in class solutions, and doing proof of concepts if you can afford the time. The product will speak for itself.

We use Quest Foglight for Databases for production monitoring of our databases, including Postgres, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL. We proactively manage our customer databases that support our SaaS application.

We had some licensing constraints with our previous solution Idera. When we crafted the contract with Quest on Foglight, we were able to go from basically 30% coverage of our production environment to 100% coverage. We have better visibility into the environment since putting it in place.

We implemented the solution’s Angular UI. It took us a day to do it, and we just stepped in and started using it. It was pretty straightforward and easy. The overall data availability in the Angular UI is good. We are not seeing any gaps from the legacy UI to the new UI for the things that we were relying on. Everything that we expected to be there is there. It proactively alerts us of long-running queries.

In terms of the capability to quickly diagnose and resolve emerging issues, some things are disconnected from the rest of our observability platform. It takes a few steps to get from incident to resolution, but once we step into Foglight, we are able to quickly get to the data that we need to understand what is going on.

It provides real-time activity data. We run a 24/7 shop. If there are any database performance issues, we have to act on them pretty quickly.

We do not use it much to display intensive database queries. It is not really our core use case, but when we are troubleshooting application performance, it does get used in that manner at times.

It enables us to drill down and see what is causing the issue to an extent. Because we run a dynamic ORM, it is a little difficult to ascertain exactly what is happening from a database query perspective, but that has nothing to do with the tool itself. It is more about how we dynamically generate the SQL queries.

It enables us to monitor multiple database platforms. We have Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, and MySQL. Prior to having Quest Foglight for Databases, we did not have anything centralized to provide this level of insight into our platform, and we now have it.

It does exactly what it is supposed to do, and it does not do anything more, which is what we want. We do not want it to start venturing outside of what it is good at and what it is built for.

The profiler allows us to look at the profiles of the database queries that are being run over time. It allows us to go back to our customers and say that these are some of the queries causing them some headaches. It gives us the opportunity to provide suggestions on how to improve their experience.

The monitoring capabilities for Postgres should be at par with SQL Server. This is the area where we push back on our Quest representative. We want more insights into Postgres.

We have been using the solution for about two years now.

We do not have any issues with it. Sometimes the UI takes a little bit longer to render, but other than that, it is fine.

It is monitoring a little over 600 databases. It is perfectly fine for us.

We have Premier Support. They are very responsive, and they come back with direct and concise directions and answers.

Premier Support has added value in terms of response time. Generally, whenever we send something to them, we get a response within a few hours, and it is pretty straight to the point. We would have figured it out eventually. Having Premier Support shortens the timeline a little.

Neutral

We were using Idera. We had some licensing constraints with it.

It is deployed in AWS, but it is very similar to an on-prem deployment. It is as if it is deployed inside the data center.

After we got the license file, within a week, we had full coverage of our environment.

It requires minimal maintenance. We do a little bit of maintenance on it once a quarter.

It was implemented in-house. We did have a professional service contract with Quest, but that was just to have someone available from Quest to address our backend calls if we had questions. We had two people involved in the implementation.

For root cause analysis, it definitely provides us additional capabilities of getting down to where the core issue is. Due to the nature of our application, it is usually upstream, not at the database level, but it allows us to see what is happening.

I do not have any metrics, but it costs us more from a time perspective because we now have more visibility into the environment, which is a good thing.

Pricing is very reasonable. We were able to construct a pretty easy contract with Quest, who were very easy to work with and very amenable to what we are trying to do. It worked out well for us.

We looked at a couple of other solutions, like Redgate SQL Monitor, but they did not have cross-platform support. There are not too many solutions on the market that offer cross-platform support like Quest Foglight.

I would rate Quest Foglight for Databases a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

We use it for monitoring SQL databases, specifically to assess database contention. Additionally, we utilize it for real-time monitoring before deploying changes to production environments.

It provides real-time activity data. When people are saying that things are slow and not moving, we log in, identify the query that is causing the slowdowns, and address the query. It helps us determine what is causing slowdowns and address them.

We were able to see its benefits immediately. We got it to know what is going on in the database. We could very quickly identify the issue.

It enables us to monitor multiple databases. We are currently monitoring two SQL databases. One is our production server, and the other one is our test server. Before putting things in production, we test them in the test environment to ensure that there are no slowdowns with any new implementations. I know it is capable of monitoring many different types of databases, but we just use it for two SQL Servers.

It is good to quickly diagnose and resolve emerging issues. That is why we got it. It enables us to drill down and see what is causing the issue if something does not look right.

I find the SQL statements and activity highlights helpful. We look at them and see what is happening on a database. The graph and resource consumption have helped a few times. We were able to determine a network problem. Because we looked at it every day and saw this network rate increasing, we knew something was going on in the network. We could then investigate. That helped a couple of times.

What I really like is the SQL PI feature, which allows us to drill down into queries and identify what is causing contention in the database. Using the SQL PI feature, I am able to drill down into the queries, see what is blocking, and try to improve it.

It would be helpful to have more communication about new features. The concept of intensive database queries sounds beneficial, but I am not aware of how to access this feature. 

Better communication and alerts regarding the transaction logs getting full would also be beneficial. What I have noticed is that if the log files on the SQL server are full, we cannot log in and have to do some cleanup on the Foglight DB. It would be good if they could monitor that and alert us when it is getting too full. That will be handy so that we do not have to wait till it stops working and then clean up the transaction logs. I know we can set up some backups for the transaction logs. It schedules some backups on the transaction log table but sometimes, the backups might not run. It would be handy if there was some indicator saying that the transaction logs are getting full.

I do not like the OS monitoring part of it much. It does not tell me much. It has a nice graphical interface showing the system, the CPU, the files, and some real-time things going on there, but all that is not that useful. The most useful part for me is SQL PI. There are advisories, but most of the time, I ignore them. I look at them only when there is a major problem, and even then, they do not specifically tell me what the issue might be. It just gives an overview. It is not detailed.

I have been using this solution for more than five years.

It is generally stable. However, if transaction logs get full without proper cleanup, it can affect performance.

Previously, when I was using the embedded SQL, there was some lagging. There were some performance issues. That was one of the reasons for moving away from that and going to the SQL Server instance. The transition to SQL Server improved stability from the previous embedded SQL setup. The only issue is when the transaction logs are full.

The support is okay. I would rate them a seven out of ten.

Neutral

I have not used anything to this extent. I have done a few things in SQL Management Studio.

I like the Quest Foglight solution because it is easy and quick. We can quickly see what is going on at a glance. It also has real-time monitoring. With most tools, if there is something going on in a database, you only get a snapshot of time. It is not tracking the history, and the history is the big thing.

It is fully on-premises. We only use it for two servers, and we prefer it to be on-premises. Most of our servers are on-premises.

The deployment was not that difficult. The first version I had was the embedded SQL Server. For version 7.1, I had a dedicated SQL server. Their team helped with that, and it was fine. It was not too difficult. 

It did not take that long. There is not much to do here. Once we have the instance up, we just set up the agent on the databases we want to monitor.

The deployment was done by me with the assistance of Foglight support.

I would rate Quest Foglight for Databases a six out of ten. The product is good, but communication on updates and new features should be improved. We do not always know what is going on with the product.