Sure, there are many DB monitoring tools out there, but Ignite focuses on tracking, analyzing, reporting, and explaining wait events within the database--and you'd be amazed how often waits caused by your code, that of others, or from other operations in the DB are the explanation for poor performance. It can help target exactly what SQL statement or other operation is a cause of significant waits.

The tool presents the data aggregated over time, so you can view it per hour, day, week, etc. Great for both drilling down to find hot spots, and for viewing how coding/config improvements (resulting from your responding to the analyses) have led to performance improvements over time.

The tool runs with low overhead: it reads data that the DB provides, storing it in a database and providing a web-based interface to view that data. The process to read the data and create the repository (and present the web-based interface) can (and should) be done on a server separate from the server being monitored.

Here's a nice 2-minute demo. There's also a free trial, of course, and it's pretty quick and easy to install and benefit from.

As I noted in the title, it works with SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, or Sybase (sorry, not MySQL. Don't know why). And while it's a commercial product, it's not a ridiculously high price (as for some tools). I just learned of it in the past few weeks, and one customer of mine who tried it has been just thrilled with the results. I hope to write more about it later, but wanted to at least get this info out for folks to consider.

Since many people may only be considering the feature now (either only now moving to 6.1 or 7, or 8), I want to share some resources if you're new to it. (The question came up on a list, and I offered the info there, so thought I'd pass it along here.)

First, there are a couple of articles from that time 6.1 frame:

"Introducing Multiple Server Instances in ColdFusion MX 6.1", by Tim Buntel

"Using Multiple Instances with ColdFusion MX Enterprise 6.1" video (sadly, seems no longer available)

Now, CF7 did introduce the new Instance Manager within the Admin, and that (and instances in general) is covered in the CF manual:

Configuring and Administering ColdFusion MX (Chapter 7, "Using Multiple Server Instances")

Finally, there is also a new Adobe article as of CF7:

Multiple Server Instances using ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition

(Update: There's also now a CF8 version of that: Multiple server instances using Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 Enterprise Edition. The technical content seems identical, but it appears to have had considerable editorial updating.)

There are certainly other articles folks have done in the CFDJ or at CommunityMX.com, but these should get you started.

Even though it's old news to some, it does seem that like many things, use of instances is something that may have been missed by folks. I've been contemplating a new user group presentation on the topic. Nothing new for CF8, but it seems people are considering things now that they may have ignored when 6, 6.1, or 7 came out (which is why I did my daylong class at CFUnited on what was new in 6 and 7 that folks may have missed).

One last point, if those don't make it: if you're running on Windows, don't try to create an instance with a JVM heap greater than about 1.3 GB. Though Windows should allow 2GB per app, this is just a number many found that beyond which CF won't start. Hope that all helps.

Common performance problems that the dashboard reports may help to resolve include:

• CPU bottlenecks (and what queries are consuming the most CPU)
• IO bottlenecks (and what queries are performing the most IO).
• Index recommendations generated by the query optimizer (missing indexes)
• Blocking
• Latch contention

The report is an extension of the Custom Reports feature introduced in the SQL Server 2005 SP2 release of SQL Server Management Studio. Note that Reporting Services does not need to be installed.

The reports retrieve info from dynamic management views. They don't poll performance counters or require tracing be enabled. They also do not store a history of performance over time. So it's a lightweight (yet powerful) monitoring option.

You can get the extension itself at:

Performance Dashboard Reports

There's also a complete article about how to install it from Black Belt Administration: Performance Dashboard for Microsoft SQL Server, Part I , at Database Journal (and from which I obtained the image above).

Maybe you've wished you could hire someone with more experience but can't justify a high hourly rate. Of course, with so many web tools available to share a desktop, travel need no longer be a significant issue. Sometimes, it could help to simply have someone "look over your shoulder" via the web to resolve a problem.

Recognizing all those challenges, I've created a new service that I'm tentatively calling "AskCharlie", to be able to offer just such assistance.

Via buttons on my site or an 888 number you call, you can arrange to speak with me by phone (and optionally join me in a shared desktop session) to solve some knotty problem.

Best of all, it's very low cost and at a per minute rate (first-time callers can use a 10 minutes free option, and everyone gets a money-back guarantee). That and more are explained on my site:

http://www.carehart.org/askcharlie/

There you can learn more about why I did it, how it works, how the remote desktop sharing assistance works (no problem with firewalls, for instance), and more.

I'd welcome your thoughts on what you think of the idea.