Unlock SQL Insights with Database Health Monitor Features

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Stedman SQL Podcast Sn 2 Ep 12 Database Health Monitor Features with Steve and Mitchell

At Stedman Solutions, we’re always working to improve how SQL Server professionals monitor and manage their environments. With the latest release of Database Health Monitor, we’ve added several new features aimed at giving DBAs even more insight and control—while keeping the tool fast, lightweight, and easy to use.

Whether you’re managing one instance or dozens, these new capabilities help uncover deeper insights, expose hidden performance risks, and make your day-to-day work a little easier.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s new:

Cardinality Report: A New Angle on Query Planning

One of the biggest additions is the Cardinality Report—a new report designed to help identify where SQL Server is making incorrect assumptions about row estimates during query execution. Cardinality estimation issues can lead to poor execution plans and degraded performance.

Now, instead of digging through execution plans manually, you can leverage this report to spot problem areas quickly and take corrective action.

TDE Status Instance Report: Keeping Encryption Visible

Managing Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) across multiple instances? The new TDE Status Instance Report shows you which databases are encrypted, which aren’t, and helps track compliance with your organization’s security standards.

Whether you’re prepping for an audit or just staying ahead of your data protection requirements, this report simplifies visibility across the board.

New Health Checks and Warnings

As part of our ongoing effort to surface the most critical SQL Server issues before they become serious problems, we’ve added a range of new health checks and warnings. These include checks for things like:

Missing indexes in high-cost queries
Blocking session patterns
Elevated tempdb usage
Jobs failing silently
Agent history gaps

The goal is simple: alert you to things you may not even be looking for—yet.

User Experience Enhancements

We’ve also made several improvements based on community feedback. Some of the highlights include:

Better report layout and navigation for easier readability
Improved instance connection management
Faster report loading for larger environments
More intuitive alert descriptions and recommendations

As always, Database Health Monitor remains a completely free tool—and we’re committed to keeping it that way for core monitoring functionality.

Upcoming Licensing Changes

That said, we want to give a heads-up: we’re planning some licensing changes in the near future. These will primarily impact advanced features and enterprise-level support, and are designed to sustain development of the tool while keeping it free and powerful for community use.

If you’re a heavy user of Database Health Monitor or depend on it in a production environment, this is a great time to reach out and learn about our Managed Services. We integrate Database Health Monitor into our 24×7 monitoring stack, so you get expert support, instant alerting, and proactive fixes—all backed by DBAs with decades of experience.

Ready to Dive In?

If you haven’t tried the new features yet, download the latest version of Database Health Monitor at DatabaseHealth.com. It installs in minutes and gives you a clearer picture of what’s really happening inside your SQL Server.

And if you’re ready to offload the stress of monitoring, patching, and performance tuning, check out our SQL Server Managed Services—where we’re the best at SQL Server, so you don’t have to be.

Stay tuned for more updates, and keep those feature requests coming!

If you’re ready to uncover what’s slowing down your SQL Server and get expert recommendations, contact us today for a performance evaluation.

Struggling with unexpected changes in your database schema? See how Database Health Monitor helps you detect and manage Schema Drift at StedmanSolutions.com/schema-search

Don’t forget to check out our previous episodes from Season one!

Check out this bonus blog post for further information on TDE.

This video is just one of many new upgrades to Database Health Monitor 3.0!