Foglight vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Likelihood to Recommend

Strengths [Foglight]

Monitoring, Alerting and Management of on-prem virtualization and physical servers
Historical trending and baselining are excellent and being able to compare a problem period against the same sets of data for a period when there was no issue is especially helpful as part of troubleshooting.
Ease of use for end users is appreciated

Weaknesses [of Foglight]

Creation and management of custom monitors is a developer level activity requiring Groovy skillset
Less useful for management of an environment where there is a large amount of custom implementations
Commitment to longevity of cartridges/packs for specific subsystems
Ability to create custom schedules/alerts/escalations is only available via a 3rd party product (from a former Quest developer) and is not particularly easy to manage/manipulate
Lack of API accessibility for external integrations to other analytics (splunk, etc.)

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 501-1000 employees

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This is an easy 10 because I actually have recommended this product to multiple clients and colleagues! Any shop that writes its own SQL queries will benefit from the insight provided by SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, so they know which of their queries is causing a bottleneck. Small shops or databases with only a few tables likely will see far fewer opportunities for optimization.

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Stan York

VP of Development

Spitfire Management, LLCComputer Software, 11-50 employees

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Pros

Foglight NMS is very light on resources given the amount of monitoring connectivity options it provides. It is one of the few that I've trialed in the past that offers SNMP v3 connections.
The dashboard is concise with the main areas of interest. It can be customized as well if you have a particular use case.
Setting up alerts is straightforward with the ability to set custom thresholds. Alert emails get sent by configuring a primary mail server with the option to add a backup mail server in the event of a primary mail server outage or connectivity issues.

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Roger Mialkowski

Sole Proprietor

Zombie ComputersInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 employees

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Maintains historical SQL execution data, enabling forensic analysis
Has the ability to slice and dice the data so that you can drill down to the execution of a single SQL statement being executed by a stored procedure
Alerts to when the consumption pattern changes
Shows historical average run times against the current, illustrating problems when they arise
Provides tuning advice based on best practices

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

GUI interface is difficult to navigate
No APM capabilities. They left this space about a year ago
We have had issues with the GUI response times. On a regular basis, the interface can take several minutes to refresh

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Aletha Diaz

Sr. UNIX Systems Engineer

EsriComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Alerts seem to be lacking in DPA compared to competitor's tools. They can be setup but are not quite as easy or as helpful as some other tools I have used.
Grooming/pruning the repository database isn't very easy. We don't manage a lot of instances but our repo DB has grown pretty significantly.
At times when I am drilled-down to a chart, it can be difficult to navigate around from that point to another time range/query/metric.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Online Media Company, 501-1000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

Starting Price

—

Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 8.6

Based on 4 answers

We have relied on this product for a very long time and it continues to exceed expectations. The product is a vital part of our organization at this point, it would not be very ideal for us to abandon it. We use it almost every day and depend on its alerts for critical parts of our business

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 9.1

Based on 6 answers

I don't want to think about managing clusters of SQL servers in the future without this tool. We have demoed other tools and SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is the gold standard for usability and insight into what your servers are doing. The UI is a bit dated, but everything is laid out in a logical manner and drilling down into queries or timeslices is extremely intuitive.

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Joseph Dixon

Database Engineer

Life.ChurchReligious Institutions, 501-1000 employees

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Support Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 9.4

Based on 6 answers

I have had to use their support on a few occasions, for reasons that I am not clear about until recently I have always had problems upgrading the software (although the last 2 updates have gone without issue which I am very pleased to say).On those unfortunate occasions, the support has been brilliant with either excellently documented guides on how to resolve the issue by myself or have been hands-on with calls and screen sharing to remotely fix the issue. Every time the problem was sorted and more importantly, nothing was lost (apart from a bit of time). And as I stated above whatever the problem was that was causing my upgrade issues appears to have been resolved in the last 2 updates.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Retail Company, 201-500 employees

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Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer 7.6

Based on 2 answers

Follow the guidelines for the capacity of the servers. We found that the DPA databases were getting rather large and also that there are ways to reduce their size built into some of the options.

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Verified User

Consultant in Information Technology

Non-Profit Organization Management Company, 51-200 employees

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Alternatives Considered

I have experienced great business insights from the operation of this product on our data and work environment. It closely monitors workflows to ensure that there is positive and regulated outcomes that meets company standards. It detects problems in early stages to avoid critical cases that can lead to higher cost and time wastage. It prepares data and all workloads to make the process of migration from our company to cloud servers more simple.

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Emma Woodbury

Software Engineer

AvanadeInformation Technology & Services, 10,001+ employees

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At the time, we found SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to be easier to setup and to have a richer feature set than Redgate SQL Monitor, plus, from what I remember, the DPA pricing worked better for us over the course of a year. We're very happy with all the features DPA has to offer.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

Positive - near instant alerts help combat potential problems quickly
Positive - minimizes business interruption
Positive - limits disruptions to productivity

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Jaime L. Regan

Associate Attorney

Harris Beach PLLCLaw Practice, 201-500 employees

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It has allowed us to progress as an organization with much less reliance on a direct DBA than would traditionally be required
Allowed us to be much more proactive in our performance monitoring and responding to issues that would affect users.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Logistics & Supply Chain Company, 501-1000 employees

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Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Likelihood to Recommend

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Pros

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Cons

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

Likelihood to Renew

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Usability

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Support Rating

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Implementation Rating

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Alternatives Considered

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Return on Investment

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Screenshots

Foglight

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

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