Content Summary : Microsoft SQL Server has become a leading database development platform for businesses. While there are some similarities, each application developed using SQL Server has its own I/O profile and therefore its own performance characteristics. Gaining a complete view of the I/O path—software, servers, host bus adapters (HBAs), switches, switch and storage subsystem ports, storage subsystem, and disks that collectively make up the SQL Server infrastructure—is essential to understanding and managing performance. But accessing this information is no easy task. Few tools offer a sufficiently detailed picture for administrators to state with certainty the cause of poor response times. Hitachi Tuning Manager software offer full application-to-spindle performance monitoring, including an agent specifically for monitoring SQL Server databases. It tracks over 150 performance metrics within SQL Server, Microsoft Window Server hosts, SAN switches and within Hitachi storage systems. To make the product effective in managing SQL Server databases, however, requires some best practices, or “Rules-of-Thumb”, to know what to look for. Hitachi Data Systems Global Solution Services (GSS) offers a custom reporting service based on Tuning Manager, applying the Rules of Thumb, that allows customers to monitor and manage their SQL Server applications, Combined these provide administrators the tools and knowledge to ensure storage systems used by the enterprise for database applications remain fully optimized.