Customer Story
How Matrix Pointe Broke Free From the Big-Vendor Trap
Matrix Pointe’s senior DBA replaced SolarWinds DPA and SQL Sentry with WISdom, cut SQL Server licensing cost by more than 60%, dropped the mandatory multi-year commitment, and got query-level cost attribution she never had before.
Customer Profile
Customer: Matrix Pointe Software
Industry: Legal / Attorney Software
Website: matrixpointesoftware.com
Spotlight: Courtney Woolum, Senior SQL Database Administrator (DBA)
Key Outcomes:
- – 60%+ reduction in monitoring licensing cost
- No lock-in, no mandatory multi-year term
- Faster queries and fewer redundant executions
- Query-level cost visibility across hundreds of databases
The Challenge: A Big Tool for a Small Set of Problems
Matrix Pointe had long relied on SolarWinds tools like DPA and SQL Sentry to monitor performance. For Courtney Woolum, Senior SQL Server DBA, the fit was never right. In her words, the tools felt like a _”sledgehammer for a small set of problems.”
In her experience, support had been sliding, the licensing cost kept climbing, and the platform’s complexity outran what her team actually needed. As SolarWinds moved to subscription-only, multi-year terms, the math stopped working for her.
“My renewal jumped to $13,000 per year for fewer licenses—and required a three-year commitment,” said Courtney. “When I added up the true annual cost, it came out to nearly $24,000 for the same 11 licenses I now have with Fortified.”
Fewer licenses, a higher price, and a three-year lock. That is the big-vendor trap, and it is exactly what she set out to escape.
The Search: Finding the Right Fit
At the annual PASS Community Summit in November 2024, Courtney found WISdom. What caught her was not only the interface. It was the people.
“They didn’t feel like sales guys. They cared,” she said. “The product looked clean, easy to navigate, and I could see how it would actually help us.”
Matrix Pointe needed a platform that could handle hundreds of databases, deliver real visibility, and move quickly on user feedback. WISdom cleared every bar, without the enterprise price tag or the red tape. WISdom is backed by US-based SQL Server experts, and its agentless deployment meant she could get real numbers without installing anything on her instances.
What She Gained by Switching
Replacing SolarWinds was not a lateral move. Courtney traded a performance-monitoring tool for SQL Server performance monitoring with FinOps built in, and the differences showed up in daily work:
“I needed something that gave me results across the board — not just the top 10 queries on a single instance.”
- Cost, not just performance. SolarWinds told her what was slow. WISdom tells her what it costs. Query-level cost attribution puts the dollar cost of a query or stored proc next to its execution profile, so tuning decisions have a number attached.
- Results across the board. She was no longer boxed into the top handful of offenders. “I needed something that gave me results across the board — not just the top 10 queries.”
- Fewer alerts. WISdom’s noise analysis surfaces what matters instead of burying the team in notifications.
- No lock-in. Unlimited instances and no mandatory multi-year commitment, a direct contrast to the three-year term her SolarWinds renewal required.
- A partner that ships. Bi-weekly product updates, transparent release notes, and enhancements driven by user feedback.
The Solution: Turning Data Chaos into Clarity
With WISdom, Courtney got the top-down visibility she had been missing. She uses it during code reviews to catch inefficiencies, spot missing index columns, and validate query performance across environments. On one optimization project, her team used WISdom to find and cut redundant queries, and the result was a sharp drop in executions and application requests.
WISdom also made storage decisions measurable in dollars:
“When we moved large objects out of the database, we could see hundreds of gigabytes saved — and WISdom quantified that cost reduction instantly.”
That is Find / Fix / Prove: find the waste, fix it, and prove the savings in a number, not a query plan.
The Experience: Partnership That Feels Human
Beyond the technology, Courtney kept coming back to how Fortified’s team works.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m talking to salespeople — I’m talking to people who actually care about the user experience.”
From setup through ongoing support, she has found the team collaborative and quick to respond, with regular updates and meaningful improvements built on what users ask for.
“WISdom designed a product to solve problems and help users.”
The Experience: Partnership That Feels Human
Beyond the technology, Courtney kept coming back to how Fortified’s team works.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m talking to salespeople — I’m talking to people who actually care about the user experience.”
From setup through ongoing support, she has found the team collaborative and quick to respond, with regular updates and meaningful improvements built on what users ask for.
“WISdom designed a product to solve problems and help users.”
Key Outcomes
Cost Savings, Confidence, and Continuous Improvement
- 60%+ lower licensing cost compared with her SolarWinds renewals, with no mandatory multi-year commitment
- Faster queries and fewer redundant executions across key applications
- Hundreds of GB reclaimed, with the cost reduction quantified instantly
- Full visibility across hundreds of databases, plus a partner that listens, iterates, and delivers
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