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Category: Tools

Using the Performance Monitor Lite Dashboard

Published 2026-04-17 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a new video:

In this video, I dive into the Lite dashboard of my free open-source monitoring tool, which has garnered significant attention with over 10,000 installs based on GitHub repo stats. I highlight its user-friendly nature, especially for consultants or those who can’t install software on client servers, as it allows you to collect a wide range of performance metrics without the need for a separate database. I also showcase how DuckDB, an embedded analytics database, powers the Lite dashboard, ensuring fast query performance and efficient storage through Parquet file compression, making it an ideal solution for monitoring Azure SQL databases and other environments.

Click through for the video. You can grab a copy of the Lite edition, as well as the also-free Full edition, on Erik’s GitHub repo.

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OneLake File Explorer now GA

Published 2026-04-14 by Kevin Feasel

Harmeet Gill announces general availability of OneLake File Explorer:

Imagine this scenario: You’re a data engineer working with files on your local machine—CSV extracts, Excel files from the business, or intermediate outputs generated on your PC. Your goal is to run a Fabric pipeline, explore the data in a notebook, or train a model in Microsoft Fabric.

Traditionally, that means uploading files through a browser, writing scripts to push data into the lake, or coordinating with someone else who has access. It works—but it adds friction.

OneLake File Explorer removes that friction by bringing OneLake directly into Windows File Explorer.

It’s taken about 3 years to get to this point, but I’m glad to see it get past the preview hurdle.

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Tracking Resource Utilization in Performance Monitor

Published 2026-04-06 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has another video tutorial:

In this video, I delve into the resource metrics tabs of the full dashboard from my free SQL Server performance monitoring tool. I explain how these tabs provide more detailed information compared to the lighter version, including CPU utilization, TempDB usage, memory usage, and a selection of perfmon counters. The goal is to help you quickly identify when your server might be experiencing issues by showing real-time data and historical trends that can pinpoint specific performance bottlenecks. I also highlight how the weight stats section helps in understanding wait statistics, making it easier to diagnose problems related to resource contention and query compilation.

Click through for the video.

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Query Performance Tabs in Performance Monitor

Published 2026-04-03 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a new video:

In this video, I dive into the query performance tabs within my full dashboard, a free and open-source SQL Server monitoring tool. I highlight key features such as the QueryStore subtab, which provides detailed insights into query execution plans and regressions over time, helping you identify and address performance issues more effectively. Additionally, I explain how the custom trace patterns tab offers valuable data for safeguarding against overlooked performance anomalies, ensuring a comprehensive view of your SQL Server’s health.

Click through to see these capabilities.

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Building a Health Check with dbatools

Published 2026-04-03 by Kevin Feasel

David Seis has a dashboard:

After a longer break than expected, I am back to the dbatools for SQL Server DBAs blog series, and this one is a monster! In fact, this project is so big that I think it will be better to release it incrementally. This will allow you clone the repository, test and modify it in your own environment and come back for free updates over the weeks/ months to come. It is designed to allow you to customize it to your environment’s needs. This first post will be the initial process overview as well as the first set of checks and how to navigate the report.

Click through to see what David has in store.

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Updates to Straight Path Solutions sp_Check Procedures

Published 2026-04-02 by Kevin Feasel

Jeff Iannucci has some updates:

This month though there are mostly a few small updates for the tools, as next month’s updates should also include many of the issues noted in GitHub (thanks for those!) Most of this month’s updates were to sp_CheckSecurity, although we did add “Initial File Size” to the output of sp_CheckTempdb since that had been requested by a few folks.

We hope these new updates can help you, especially if you’ve never used these stored procedures. Here are the updates for March 2026, with links to the GitHub repositories where you can download the latest versions.

Click through for those links.

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Performance Monitor Full Installation Notes

Published 2026-04-02 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has a pair of documentation videos for Performance Monitor. First up is the full dashboard installation:

In this video, I delve into the installation process of my free SQL Server performance monitoring tool, addressing a common issue where users have questions about setup despite having access to detailed documentation. I explain that there are two main installers: one for command line use and another with a graphical user interface (GUI). The command line installer offers various options such as reinstalling the database, choosing encryption levels, managing server certificates, and handling password input in different ways. Additionally, I cover how the tool runs through 52 installation scripts, including community dependencies like SP WhoIsActive and my own scripts for data collection and analysis.

After that, Erik shows off the user interface:

In this video, I delve into the exciting world of free SQL Server monitoring tools, specifically focusing on a dashboard I’ve developed called Performance Monitor. This tool is designed to make life easier for DBAs and developers by providing real-time insights into server performance, resource usage, blocking issues, and more. With a user-friendly interface that includes various tabs like an overview, resource metrics, and query analysis, the dashboard aims to simplify complex monitoring tasks. I also highlight some of its unique features such as the plan viewer, which leverages Microsoft’s SQL Server extension for Visual Studio Code to provide detailed execution plans with actionable insights. Whether you’re a seasoned DBA or just starting out, this tool can help you keep your SQL Server environment running smoothly and efficiently.

Click through to check out what Erik has to offer.

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Reviewing the Performance Monitoring Lite Dashboard

Published 2026-03-31 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling has another tutorial video:

In this video, I delve into the exciting world of SQL Server monitoring tools, focusing on the Lite version of my free open-source tool, which is a lightweight and secure solution for monitoring performance across multiple servers. I walk through how to download and set up the Lite edition, highlighting its unique features such as no server-side installations or databases, making it an ideal choice for environments like Azure SQL Database where agent jobs are used. The video covers the tool’s 20 collectors that run with minimal permissions, ensuring data collection is both efficient and secure. I also showcase the various tabs within the dashboard, including weight [sic] stats, query trends, CPU and memory usage graphs, blocking information, and performance monitor counters, all designed to provide a comprehensive view of SQL Server health without any heavy lifting on the server side.

I think my preference is still for the Full version (especially given that the price tag on both versions is zero) in most situations, but the Lite version does cover some neat bits of functionality.

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Protecting the SSMS Server List

Published 2026-03-30 by Kevin Feasel

Jens Vestergaard provides an update:

Twelve years ago 🤯 I wrote a quick post about never losing your server list in SSMS again. The short version was: copy one file, stay sane. The file was called SqlStudio.bin, and the trick still works today if you are on an old enough version.

But if you are running SSMS 19, 20, 21 or 22 on Windows 11, the file is gone. The settings have moved, and the format has changed. The principle is the same, but the file you need to grab is different.

Here is the updated version for 2026.

Click through to see what changed starting in SSMS 19, as well as how to manage that file.

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PSBlitz Updates

Published 2026-03-30 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea has a changelog:

For anyone not familiar with PSBlitz: it’s a PowerShell-based tool that outputs SQL Server health and performance diagnostics data to either Excel or HTML, and saves execution plans and deadlock graphs as .sqlplan and .xdl files.

If you’re familiar with Oracle, this is pretty much my attempt of a SQL Server equivalent to Oracle’s AWR report.

Click through for updates, screenshots, and one breaking change.

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