Introducing SQLTempo: historical reporting without touching production

Every SQL Server environment has a story — how it grew, what changed, and when. The problem is that most of that story lives in nobody's head, or in a scattered pile of screenshots and spreadsheets. SQLTempo exists to fix that, without asking for a change request just to find out.

The constraint that shaped everything

The first design rule for SQLTempo was simple: nothing gets installed on the SQL Server itself. No agent, no extended stored procedure, no background service. That one constraint drives most of the architecture — it's why the tool runs from a DBA's own workstation or a single shared application server, and connects out to whatever instance you point it at.

The payoff is real. Because nothing touches the production server, running a SQLTempo report generally doesn't require sign-off through a formal change management process — it's just a read-only connection, in and out.

What it actually does

SQLTempo captures the current state of an instance and its databases and it allows you to compares it against history, so you can answer questions like:

• What changed on this server since last month's report?
• Has someone changed a database configuration?
• Has a new query surfaced that changed the overall SQL Performance?

Getting started

Setup is intentionally boring:

Download and a Simple install — under five minutes, with nothing to deploy to the SQL Server itself.

From there, it's a command-line tool:

SQLTempo.exe --server=SQLPROD01\INST01 runs a full report against a named instance. Add /D or /I to scope the run to just the database or instance section, and /V for verbose output while you're getting familiar with it.

What's next

SQLTempo is at version 1.0.0 today. Future posts here will cover new report sections, bug fixes, and real-world use cases from the field.

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