Realtime SQL Server Monitoring Tools? We been having a lot of sql server performance problems lately. I've recently been digging into performance analysis using the variety of DMVs. I've definitely found some interesting things. Unfortunately, i'm a developer and can't spend a whole lot of time on this issue and we don't have any in house knowledge in this area. SQL performance monitoring almost seems like an art in itself. So i've been researching some tools that will lead us down the right path and take a lot of guess work out the equation. The competing tools i've found so far are:

Ignite - Confio

SQL Monitor - Redgate

Foglight - Quest

Diagnostic Manager - Idera

Performance Advisor - SQL Sentry
I'm leaning towards SQL Monitor because we have a variety of red gate tools and have been extremely happy with them and it comes at a very attractive price compared to the competition. I also really like the web interface compared to a stand alone app. I'm sure by the price there are features in the other tools that red gate doesn't have. There is only so much you can get from marketing info &amp; videos on their website. Can anyone give some advice to which of the products (if not all) give alerts that are more geared towards the type of shop that doesn't have anyone who is SQL Server performance anaylsis pro?


Edit: Which of the tools require a separate machine? It appears from confio web site that ignite does.
I think the comments on the question answer it. I'm creating this so i can mark the question as answered.