As a fairly newly minted DBA under the gun, I have run the gamut of free tools and done some experimentation in the paid space (DPA, SQL Sentry, and Foglight) and it really depends on what you want the tool for.

In my experience the most important thing was not just communicating performance baselines (management vastly didn't care unless there was someone to yell at), but produce something in an easy to consume format that made the priorities clear and was able to track down performance issues in production.

You can absolutely build up your skills by going the free route, and the tools for SQL Server are great.

• Ozar First Responder Kit https://www.brentozar.com/responder/
• sp_whoisactive http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2012/03/22/released-who-is-active-v11-11.aspx (included in the first responder kit)
• #sqlhelp on twitter is one of the most friendly and useful SQL Server related resources on the internet
• PSSDiag and SQLDiag http://diagmanager.codeplex.com/
• SQLNexus http://sqlnexus.codeplex.com/

With these and some additional databases/tables and jobs and time you can build out a basic monitoring system (but it isn't pretty) these are tools for DBAs; unless you are good at BI stuff you will struggle to find time to produce useful business friendly stuff from it, though the Ozar sp_blitz app is pretty dang cool.

After spending around a year doing the free thing and resolving plenty of issues (but not getting much buy in) I was able to make it clear, after a major issue, that perf monitoring software was a priority, and we were going to buy it come hell or high water.

After demoing the previously mentioned clients, I chose DPA because management could easily consume the results, though I definitely have client licenses for SQL Sentry Plan Explorer Pro (1000% worth the money) and really liked using the server version, it just didnt grab them the same way.

I also tried getting SQLNexus working at one point but I ended up working a lot than I was interested in, it may suit your needs.

As a fairly newly minted DBA under the gun, I have run the gamut of free tools and done some experimentation in the paid space (DPA, SQL Sentry, and Foglight) and it really depends on what you want the tool for.

In my experience the most important thing was not just communicating performance baselines (management vastly didn't care unless there was someone to yell at), but produce something in an easy to consume format that made the priorities clear and was able to track down performance issues in production.

You can absolutely build up your skills by going the free route, and the tools for SQL Server are great.

• Ozar First Responder Kit https://www.brentozar.com/responder/
• sp_whoisactive http://whoisactive.com/ (included in the first responder kit)
• #sqlhelp on twitter is one of the most friendly and useful SQL Server related resources on the internet
• PSSDiag and SQLDiag http://diagmanager.codeplex.com/
• SQLNexus http://sqlnexus.codeplex.com/

With these and some additional databases/tables and jobs and time you can build out a basic monitoring system (but it isn't pretty) these are tools for DBAs; unless you are good at BI stuff you will struggle to find time to produce useful business friendly stuff from it, though the Ozar sp_blitz app is pretty dang cool.

After spending around a year doing the free thing and resolving plenty of issues (but not getting much buy in) I was able to make it clear, after a major issue, that perf monitoring software was a priority, and we were going to buy it come hell or high water.

After demoing the previously mentioned clients, I chose DPA because management could easily consume the results, though I definitely have client licenses for SQL Sentry Plan Explorer Pro (1000% worth the money) and really liked using the server version, it just didnt grab them the same way.

I also tried getting SQLNexus working at one point but I ended up working a lot than I was interested in, it may suit your needs.

As a fairly newly minted DBA under the gun, I have run the gamut of free tools and done some experimentation in the paid space (DPA, SQL Sentry, and Foglight) and it really depends on what you want the tool for.

In my experience the most important thing was not just communicating performance baselines (management vastly didn't care unless there was someone to yell at), but produce something in an easy to consume format that made the priorities clear and was able to track down performance issues in production.

You can absolutely build up your skills by going the free route, and the tools for SQL Server are great.

• https://www.brentozar.com/responder/
• http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2012/03/22/released-who-is-active-v11-11.aspx (included in the first responder kit)
• #sqlhelp on twitter is one of the most friendly and useful SQL Server related resources on the internet

With these and some additional databases/tables and jobs and time you can build out a basic monitoring system (but it isn't pretty) these are tools for DBAs; unless you are good at BI stuff you will struggle to find time to produce useful business friendly stuff from it, though the Ozar sp_blitz app is pretty dang cool.

After spending around a year doing the free thing and resolving plenty of issues (but not getting much buy in) I was able to make it clear, after a major issue, that perf monitoring software was a priority, and we were going to buy it come hell or high water.

After demoing the previously mentioned clients, I chose DPA because management could easily consume the results, though I definitely have client licenses for SQL Sentry Plan Explorer Pro (1000% worth the money) and really liked using the server version, it just didnt grab them the same way.

As a fairly newly minted DBA under the gun, I have run the gamut of free tools and done some experimentation in the paid space (DPA, SQL Sentry, and Foglight) and it really depends on what you want the tool for.

In my experience the most important thing was not just communicating performance baselines (management vastly didn't care unless there was someone to yell at), but produce something in an easy to consume format that made the priorities clear and was able to track down performance issues in production.

You can absolutely build up your skills by going the free route, and the tools for SQL Server are great.

• Ozar First Responder Kit https://www.brentozar.com/responder/
• sp_whoisactive http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2012/03/22/released-who-is-active-v11-11.aspx (included in the first responder kit)
• #sqlhelp on twitter is one of the most friendly and useful SQL Server related resources on the internet
• PSSDiag and SQLDiag http://diagmanager.codeplex.com/
• SQLNexus http://sqlnexus.codeplex.com/

With these and some additional databases/tables and jobs and time you can build out a basic monitoring system (but it isn't pretty) these are tools for DBAs; unless you are good at BI stuff you will struggle to find time to produce useful business friendly stuff from it, though the Ozar sp_blitz app is pretty dang cool.

After spending around a year doing the free thing and resolving plenty of issues (but not getting much buy in) I was able to make it clear, after a major issue, that perf monitoring software was a priority, and we were going to buy it come hell or high water.

After demoing the previously mentioned clients, I chose DPA because management could easily consume the results, though I definitely have client licenses for SQL Sentry Plan Explorer Pro (1000% worth the money) and really liked using the server version, it just didnt grab them the same way.

I also tried getting SQLNexus working at one point but I ended up working a lot than I was interested in, it may suit your needs.