For the SQL Server General category Silver Award, judges picked Idera's SQL Compliance Manager 2.1, an auditing and compliance package for SQL Server environments.

Regulatory compliance is on every manager's list of must-do activities, and decent tools to help that task along were greeted with open arms by our judges. This software lets managers audit and report across multiple SQL Servers from a central point of control. It boasts rules-based alerting to help database managers know that compliance is enforced. SQL Compliance Manager 2.1 also looks for suspicious activity by tracking DDL, DML, DCL, logins and failed logins.

Idera added some fine-tuning to the existing features in the latest version of this product. For example, it added better filtering to keep out unwanted SQL events in the audit trail and improved alerting on more SQL Server-type events. Idera also made some improvements to SQL Compliance Manager's auditing features.

Judges like the tool's features and gave general praise to Idera, which has a reputation for good support and intuitive products. Indeed, Idera received its highest marks for support.

SQL Compliance Manager 2.1 sells for $1,795 per SQL Server instance. The company offers enterprise pricing as well.

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