Tools

The admin tools SQLly opens from the Object Explorer's right-click Tools menu - some for a whole server, some scoped to a single database.

Right-click a server or a database in the Object Explorer and open Tools. Everything a DBA tends to open a second application for lives there - health, security, backups, comparisons, transfers, insights - scoped to whatever you right-clicked.

Script-first, on purpose

Destructive work opens as SQL, not as a button. Starting a job, dropping an index, restoring a database, stopping an event session, syncing data: SQLly writes the exact statement into a query tab for you to read and run. You keep the audit trail, the chance to change your mind, and something to paste into a change request.

The read-only halves are direct: grids, tiles, and counters come straight from the engine's own views, refreshed while you watch. The rule is simply that looking is immediate and changing goes through SQL you can see.

Two scopes

Server tools

The whole instance: dashboard, SQL Agent, server security, connection health, and disk usage across every database.

Database tools

One database: backup, activity, designers, import/export, compare, transfer, insights, indexes, test data, diagrams, docs, and history.

Security deliberately appears in both: logins and server roles are instance-level, users and role membership are database-level, and conflating them is how permissions go wrong. Disk Usage appears in both for the same reason - sizing every database is a different question from one database's file layout.

What a tool is connected to

A tool captures its connection when it opens and keeps it. Switching the active connection afterwards never redirects work already in flight, so a backup you started against staging cannot finish against production because you clicked elsewhere while waiting.

Tools run through the same service layer as everything else, which means they work the same over a relayed connection as they do locally, and they respect the connection's safety policy - a read-only connection does not get a back door through a dialog.

Engine coverage varies by tool, because the underlying feature does. Each tool's page states which engines it applies to; SQL Agent and Extended Events, for instance, are SQL Server features and say so.

In this section

Server tools — Right-click a server, open Tools, and act on the whole instance.
Database tools — Right-click a database, open Tools, and work within that database.