Woodler SMT vs. Spotlight

If you want to find the root cause of any incident of your SQL server, this is the right tool. It is not so [appealing] for the top management, if they want see the KPI's and charts.

Spotlight is great when you need a tool to give a quick look at a SQL server as a whole. It gives you the ability to see a lot of things, which can be vital in diagnosing problems or identifying stressors. Less great is the open-end of some of the diagnoses it makes, and things it identifies as "problems" (unless you love users coming to you and saying something like "Spotlight says there's a problem with our page latch!!!").

Incentivized

• SQL Server monitoring
• SQL Server performance tuning
• SQL Server root cause analysis
• Assistance from SQL professionals

• The screen is color-coded, so when Red or Orange is displayed you are able to drill down into that setting and figure out what is going on.
• This tool also integrates with the OEM agents which will also have implemented.
• Spotlight also works great without RAC databases, able to view at the cluster level or drill down to instances and VM's.

Incentivized

• Too [much] information for [inexperienced] users (but this is [a] very common issue with SQL Server and its monitoring)

• Cash Flow analysis could be better, there are many different scenarios to calculate the cash flow but flexibility is not great.
• Incorporating machine learning algorithms for predictive analytics could enhance forecasting accuracy

Incentivized

the platform offers a clean, easy to use interface. You can customize reports and dashboard. Integration is also pretty good, you can integrate to Xero, QBO and MYOB and excel spreadsheets. It also offers very broad supporting documents and webinars. There are only two downside of Spotlight; learning curve (it could be a bit difficult at the beginning to learn the system) and price point (For small businesses, Spotlight Reporting can be seen as relatively expensive compared to other reporting tools)

Incentivized

Though our support needs have been minimal, we have gotten good responses when we have needed it.

Incentivized

Even if Solarwinds's solution is [a] highly competitive, worldwide known product while Woodler SMT was developed by [a] small local company, both provide very comparable output for DBAs. I did not make an experience with "living human" support from Solarwinds, but in my opinion, the Woodler's personal support makes the advantage when the choice between both products [has] to be done.

Spotlight is more usable, better at meeting requirements. Integration with Xero is one of the strengths (as others integrate too but Spotlight seems better connection). We also like the way group consolidation work in Spotlight. If your focus is on comprehensive, flexible, and visually rich reports and dashboards for multiple clients or entities, Spotlight is a clear choice.

Incentivized

• Quick reactions on problems.
• SQL performance problems root cause analysis.
• Increased DBAs productivity in daily operations.
• Time saver

• It had a positive impact in two main areas. First, it was easy for the DBA team to configure it to watch and alert on the most important instances. And second, it was very easy to provide clients read-only access to the dashboard so they could watch their servers as well, i.e. they weren't always pestering us for current status.

Incentivized