SQL Index Analysis
Analyzing and optimizing your SQL Server indexes
SQL Sentry offers a powerful SQL Index Analysis capability as part of Plan Explorer, which is included in SQL Sentry.
Index Analysis provides a sandbox environment you can use to analyze an indexing strategy for a specific operation in a query, as long as the query is executed from within the Plan Explorer session.
Index Analysis in Plan Explorer guides you based on tried-and-true indexing methods to create the best index to cover a query. And when you run the query after applying the index, you’ll get an overall score for your index based on the SQL Sentry index scoring algorithm.
You can watch the score change in real time as you work toward the elusive 100% score—before executing a single line of code against SQL Server.
Indexes tab
The Indexes tab in the Performance Analysis Dashboard displays information about your tables and indexes collected by the SQL Sentry Fragmentation Manager.
This tab provides the stats you need to make informed decisions about index management in your SQL Server environment as you determine whether an index should be rebuilt or defragmented with the Fragmentation Manager.
The Indexes tab also displays a set of charts with aggregated statistics about the indexes analyzed. You can also see index-related statistics such as the average percentage of fragmentation.
Total fragmentation
Get a tree view of SQL indexes and related metrics, as well as view detailed charts for a selected index to see fragmentation history. And you can set an automated scheduled for index defragmentation and view the relevant metrics needed to make informed decisions about index management—and boost SQL Server performance.
What you can do with SQL Index Analysis
- Evaluate the best index based on query coverage, value density, sorting effectiveness, and seek ability
- Make intelligent decisions about when and how to perform defragmentation operations, when to adjust fill factors, or when an index definition should be changed
- Automatically collect table and index information, analyze the data, take the appropriate reorganization or rebuild operations, and then perform post-defragmentation analysis
“We have used SQL Sentry for analyzing and researching long-running SQL queries and deadlock issues, which have become major bottlenecks in our application development processes. The software has helped us address missing index issues and optimize query performances.”
Jun Tang
Database Administrator
J. Spargo & Associates
Get started with SQL Index Analysis
SolarWinds SQL Sentry
Fast root cause analysis
Visibility across the data estate
Deep, actionable performance metrics with easy deep-dive capabilities
