Do you think you need to use commercial tools like SQL Diagnostic Manager, SQL Sentry, Spotlight etc.. ? Or do you think the built-in features are enough? There are complelling arguments in favor of each. In this blog I hope to touch on every built-in feature to gather the performance information, some give real-time overviews of your databases whereas others provide detailed, on-demand data on SQL Server health and performance. I hope you learn something new. Using T-SQL There are several ways to use T-SQL queries to monitor SQL Server, using dynamic management views, built-in functions, stored procedures, or system data collections… Dynamic management views DMVs are virtual tables that you can query on adhoc or as part of your custom, automated monitoring. Some shows sql server state at a particular instant whereas others, especially those that deal with performance counters, measures values on a regular internal and show you the difference between two samples...