SQL Sentry, LLC., the developer of award-winning software for SQL Server performance monitoring and tuning, is pleased to announce that all Plan Explorer features are being made available for free. Historically, SQL Sentry has offered two versions of Plan Explorer, a Free edition with basic features, and a paid Pro edition with enhanced capabilities such as tuning history, query playback, and query-level wait stats. In the new free Plan Explorer, these powerful Pro edition features are now included, as are several unprecedented new capabilities for index tuning and real-time query performance profiling that have been in development for over a year.

“This is undoubtedly the biggest thing to happen to Plan Explorer since its initial release in 2010. Since that time, Plan Explorer has become the most popular SQL Server query plan tuning tool in the world, with many thousands of active users,” said Greg Gonzalez, CEO, SQL Sentry. “Although we know that that the free Plan Explorer can significantly streamline the query tuning process and improve server performance, after seeing firsthand the even more dramatic impact that the Pro features can have, it became obvious to us that getting these capabilities into the hands of as many users as possible was the right thing to do.”

Aaron Bertrand, Product Evangelist added, “Aside from the ground-breaking features, perhaps what I’m most excited about with the new free Plan Explorer is the fact we are continuing to make it available with no strings attached. In our industry, it is the norm for software companies to use free tools to drive lead generation and follow-up sales calls by requiring contact registration, even though many of those tools have little to no real utility. With Plan Explorer, not only do we have the most powerful free tool, but we continue to buck the registration-required trend. When we say ‘free,’ we mean it, and that’s a good feeling.”

Plan Explorer is available for free download at www.sqlsentry.com/plan-explorer, no strings attached.

For additional information, visit the SQL Sentry website at www.sqlsentry.com.