I'll jump in here if I may. There's another spotlight/DBXray type tool that we are starting to bring in to the UK market place at the moment, that is being received *very* well. The tool is called MGA Eagle Eye, which is developed over in Australia by Mark Gurry's company (http://www.mga-it.com). Many haven't heard about it - some on this list I know have..
It does most anything that Spotlight can do - with a few added bonuses. Many of you will have seen Cary Millsap's ethos of diagnosing "performance problems" via measuring actual user response times. Eagle Eye will allow you to feed a script, or set of scripts (an average form for example) in to an engine that will execute the "suite" of a scripts on a pre-defined basis. You set an acceptable response time threshold, and if that suite goes over the threshold, Eagle Eye will do a system wide "trace", finding out who else is active at that time, what they are running and the explain plans, and will gather any system wide or object wait statistics - giving you a "snapshot" of what was happening when performance went out the window.. The history of executions is recorded, so that if someone calls saying "Last Wednesday I had some problems doing FooBar" - you can have some details to say "Oh yes, it was X", or "No, sorry - the problem wasn't with the Oracle, please bug somebody else!!" ;) It also gives a mechanism for generating HTML based reports on SQL "suites", and has just had a web application benchmarking module added to it as well. You can check it out on Mark Gurry's company site (as above) or on the Cool-Tools site (we are currently handling UK & Europe) here: http://www.cool-tools.co.uk/Products/eagleeye.html . If you would like any more info on it Fermin, or a demo, please feel free to contact me directly. (Sorry list for the shameless plug) Regards Mark =================================================== Mark Leith | T: +44 (0)1905 330 281 Sales & Marketing | F: +44 (0)870 127 5283 Cool Tools UK Ltd | E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =================================================== http://www.cool-tools.co.uk Maximising throughput & performance -----Original Message----- Steve Perry Sent: 23 July 2003 03:59 To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L great review :) I told them the same thing, but they're developer driven. The customer using the product comes 2nd. A flashing widget is more important to them than useful data to the DBA. The slowness has a been an issue since web dba. That required 256mb of ram. I asked if they were going to include memory and they said everybody runs their desktop with 500meg of ram or even better "They'll need to upgrade". :)) my 2� ----- Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 1:49 PM > OK, I got the e-mail to try a trial of DBXray from BMC. Crap, I tell you. > Crap. Crap, crap, crap. To be truthful, I'm not sure how much we pay for > Spotlight, but for $2500/user, DBXray has a LOT to be desired. > > I've apparently been spoiled by Quest's Spotlight interface. After a > 15-minute trial of DBXray (granted, that's a little slim), here's what my > kneejerk of what I see to be the advantages of Spotlight on Oracle (SoO) > over DBXray (DBX): > > 1) It's in freakin Java. 60MB of mem to launch and it's sloooow, even on a > 2.4Ghz w/512MB. Half of this is a Java Windohs service. > > 2) It doesn't understand ONAMES, so I would need to manually maintain yet > another repository of Oracle Network connections. > > 3) SoO's color scheme is configurable. DBX seems to be fixed on a scheme of > light gray on light blue. Very low contrast and I can't imagine this is > viewable by color-blind folk. > > 4) SoO's interface is scalable. DBX's main dashboard is fixed in size. > > 5) No menu access to drilldowns in DBX. Difficult for neophyte or > occasional users to locate the correct image map on the main dashboard of > DBX. > > 6) Session drilldown has fixed set of columns in DBX. "Tune" button only > provides weak text-only explain plan. SoO provides two different methods > for doing explain plans out-of-the box, and is expandable with optional > software like the-product-formerly-known-as-SQLab. > > 7) Very few options for data display in DBX. SoO, for example, allows you > to turn off BCHR collection as well as configure which columns to return > from V$SESSION for the session drilldown (see #6). > > Man, there's so much more I don't want to take more time on it. SoO is > clearly a *far* superior product when it comes to instance monitoring and > tuning. I tried thinking of a single advantage of DBX over SoO, and I can't > come up with one. > > Now to see if DBX will actually uninstall... > > > Rich > > Rich Jesse System/Database Administrator > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Quad/Tech Inc, Sussex, WI USA > > p.s. Jacques, you can tell Steve N (Quest Monitoring Product Manager) that > I'm a "large" for Quest t-shirts, polos, and/or jackets. ;) > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Jesse, Rich > > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 11:27 AM > > To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' > > Subject: RE: TOAD vs BMC's XRAY > > > > > > I haven't used DBXray (yet -- maybe it's not an automated > > process to download a trial?), but I don't feel TOAD is the > > best at DB administration, especially for performance > > tuning/monitoring. Then again, it's been awhile since I've > > used TOAD's optional DBA module, since it's no longer > > available in the beta. For development, I think it's the > > best, especially at US $795/user. I've been a TOAD user > > since v4, when it was Jim McDaniel's freeware baby. > > > > For tracing into running SQLs I prefer using Quest's > > Spotlight. Aside from a slick interface (makes impressive > > screen shots for management-types), it is very easy to drill > > down into problem areas, like resource hogging sessions you > > mention. I still think that any tool requires knowledge of > > the underlying queries they use to fully understand what the > > tool is telling you, I just happen to prefer Spotlight's interface. > > > > If I ever get the email for the DBXray trial from BMC, I'll > > let you know what I think of that compared to the others. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Fermin Bernaus [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 11:20 AM > > > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L > > > Subject: TOAD vs BMC's XRAY > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi there, > > > > > > I am considering buying an administration tool and > > > programmer's tool. The two I know are Toad and BMC's XRAY but > > > since I do not know them very well I have difficulties > > > deciding which of them is the best. What I need more is to > > > tune the database, trace into time and CPU consuming SQLs, a > > > procedure / trigger editor and debugger. > > > > > > Or maybe you know better tools than these two... any > > > help will be greatly appreciated. > > > -- > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net > -- > Author: Jesse, Rich > INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com > San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message > to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in > the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L > (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may > also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Steve Perry INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.502 / Virus Database: 300 - Release Date: 18/07/2003 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.502 / Virus Database: 300 - Release Date: 18/07/2003 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Mark Leith INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
