Top 3 3rd Party SQL Server tools every Database Administrator needs

Every SQL Server database administrator needs one or more 3rd Party tools such as:

• monitoring tool
• schema and data compare tool
• Entity relationship diagram (ERD) diagramming tool

These 3rd Party tools are the ones I worked with as a SQL Server Database Administrator. Each 3rd Party tool may or may not have a free trial or free version available.

• Solarwinds – Database Performance Monitoring (formerly by Ignite)
• Redgate – SQL Data compare and SQL Compare
• Idera – ER/Studio Data Architect (formerly by Embarcadero)

The more servers you have, the more likely you will need one or more of these 3rd Party SQL Server tools. The more hats you wear you will likely need all three 3rd Party SQL Server tools.

Most of the 3rd Party SQL Server tools let you customize and add to the existing framework provided. And that’s not always good! It takes a while to determine what you may or may not need to customize as well as determine what exactly the 3rd Party SQL Server tool can and cannot do.

Perhaps one day there will a 3rd Party SQL Server tool that can run straight out of the box with the most common settings set as the default and be straight forward to install and interpret results.