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SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Overview

What is SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) enables deep visibility into database performance and expert advice for performance optimization and tuning.What can you monitor with DPA? OracleOracle ExadataOracle EBSMicrosoft SQL Server Azure SQL DatabaseAzure SQL Database Managed InstanceMySQLDB2 SAP ASE AuroraMariaDBDPA monitors…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

User-Friendly Interface: Users appreciate the SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for its straightforward and easy-to-understand …
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DPA: FTW.

8 out of 10
March 22, 2022
Incentivized
We use DPA to manage a very large and somewhat cranky SQL environment for ambulatory healthcare end users (from providers and office …
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Pricing

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What is SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) enables deep visibility into database performance and expert advice for performance optimization and tuning. What can you monitor with DPA? Oracle Oracle Exadata Oracle EBS Microsoft…

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  • Setup fee optional

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dbForge Studio is provided by Devart and is a universal front-end client for database management, administration and development. Devart's GUI tool provides utilities to compare, synchronize, and back up databases (e.g. MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.) with scheduling, and includes the…

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Product Details

What is SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) enables deep visibility into database performance and expert advice for performance optimization and tuning.

What can you monitor with DPA?
  • Oracle
  • Oracle Exadata
  • Oracle EBS
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Azure SQL Database
  • Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
  • MySQL
  • DB2
  • SAP ASE
  • Aurora
  • MariaDB
DPA monitors physical, virtual, and cloud-based databases (including Microsoft Azure and Amazon RDS)

What makes DPA stand out:

  • Quick, easy, and reliable performance troubleshooting available in real time and historically

  • Machine learning anomaly analysis to bring intelligence to go beyond traditional threshold based analysis
  • Find inefficient workloads, aggregated by table, for indexing opportunities—an “X marks the spot” tuning analysis
  • Cross-platform database support for a single-pane-of-glass view into your environment
  • Blocking analysis: what is blocking and a hierarchy of what is being blocked, plus overall impact
  • PerfStack™ integration with other SolarWinds products for more complete visibility (applications, servers, storage, hypervisor, network, and more)
  • Agent-less architecture with the ability to scale from a few instances to thousands, low 1% average overhead

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Features

  • Supported: Database monitoring
  • Supported: Tuning advisors for queries, workload, and indexes aggregated at the table level
  • Supported: Correlated resource metrics for easy diagnosis of hardware constraint impacts on end-users
  • Supported: Detailed blocking analysis for contention bottlenecks
  • Supported: I/O activity tracking at the drive/mount and file level
  • Supported: Alerts and reports
  • Supported: DPA Central to manage large and/or distributed environments
  • Supported: Always On Availability Group and RAC insights

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Screenshots

Screenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Alerts and reportsScreenshot of Application-centric view of DPAScreenshot of Blocking deadlock analysisScreenshot of Collaboration across teamsScreenshot of Intuitive performance monitoringScreenshot of Performance intelligenceScreenshot of Query performance analysisScreenshot of Real-time & historic monitoringScreenshot of Recommendations

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Videos

Azure Database Support Overview

Watch Product Overview

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, AWS Marketplace app
Mobile ApplicationNo

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

Foglight, Spotlight, and Idera Uptime Capacity Monitor are common alternatives for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.

Reviewers rate Solarwinds Premier Support Rating highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(227)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

User-Friendly Interface: Users appreciate the SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for its straightforward and easy-to-understand interface. They find it intuitive and user-friendly, even for new users with minimal training.

Real-Time Analysis and Support: The tool's real-time analysis capabilities and support services are highly valued by users. They mention that it helps them promptly identify and resolve performance issues in SQL databases, such as errors, long-running queries, or system-blocking problems.

Wide Range of Supported Databases: Users find the extensive range of supported databases to be a valuable feature of the tool. It allows them to monitor and analyze the performance of multiple databases from one centralized interface.

Dated and Confusing User Interface: Several users have expressed frustration with the user interface, describing it as dated, confusing, and difficult to navigate. They suggest that the user interface could be more user-friendly and have a reduced learning curve. Some users also mentioned that the navigation can be unintuitive and sometimes tough, and that some items can be confusing to find again. Overall, improvements in the cosmetic aspects of the user interface are needed.

Lack of Reporting Flexibility: According to some users, there is a lack of flexibility in both dashboard customization and reporting capabilities. They feel that the reporting feature needs improvement to provide more options for customization and analysis. This limitation hinders users' ability to obtain meaningful insights from their data.

High Cost: The cost of the software has been a major complaint among some users, particularly when it comes to adding additional instances. These users mention that the licensing timeline needs improvement as adding new instances becomes cost-prohibitive during certain periods of the year. The high cost associated with using this software can limit its accessibility for businesses operating on tight budgets.

Users highly recommend trying the free trial and evaluating SolarWinds DPA before purchasing. They suggest taking advantage of the free demo and training resources provided by SolarWinds. Users advise implementing SolarWinds DPA for monitoring and analyzing databases, especially for those who are just learning. The software is also recommended for DBAs in small to medium businesses and for integrating with other SolarWinds products for better data analysis. Additionally, users suggest comparing it with Idera offerings for SQL performance monitoring and highlighting it to DBAs as they will likely find value in it.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 113)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This is good tool to analyze the DB performance. This is used by DBAs to understand the usage of the databases across the departments. It helps in understanding the actual problem and resolve it.
  • Query analysis
  • Resource usage
  • Index advice
  • More advice
  • Backup details
  • Notifications
If you have high transactional database then this is very useful [for] getting resource usage information and understanding the usage of the databases. Wait time graphs helps us understand the database bottlenecks.
Michael P. O'Hara | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our e-commerce platform = crown jewels (i.e. all revenue flows in via website). Knowing the in/outs of DB performance is a business requirement.

DPA is a *tremendous* tool. It provides a deep dive across all critical metrics on our ORA RDS & EC2. I find the table/query advisories to be of great use.

Would deploy across any DB if I could - the info is gold.
  • Drill-down into expensive queries.
  • Table/Query Advisor.
  • Easy to interpret graphing.
DPA would be useful in QA if one could run load simulations against the site/DB. Probably not viable for a lot of companies - though the cost per instance is peanuts.
Stan York | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Spitfire deploys a software platform backed by a Microsoft SQL Database with over 140 tables and more than 650 procedures. The size of the database typically surpasses millions of records and several hundred GB. SQL creates query plans that differ for each client depending upon their unique distribution of data. Some have only a few dozen projects a year - others a couple of thousand. Clients create budgets with different levels of detail and then create material purchases - sometimes one line each, others 500 lines. So a one-size-fits-all query is a challenge. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer gives us real-time, ongoing visibility into the performance of our queries across a real-world deployment.
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.
  • Identifies objects causing bottleneck by real wait time
  • Identifies specific section of a large query that needs attention
  • Lets you see what index is actually being used
  • Helps you see if CPU, RAM or DISK is the limiting resource
  • View Plan Details is actually a bit weaker than SSMS because all the lines are the same width
  • The "View SQL Text" viewer could be fancier - but it does clearly identify the problem section
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is our primary monitoring and analysis tool for our SQL server instances. We leverage it for both production and non-production environments. It gives us visibility into system and query performance, alerts us to issues so they can be remediated, and allows us to dig into performance trends of queries and look for key opportunities to make our systems more performant. It is used both by our DBAs and our development team.
I believe that SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a great choice for an organization that does not have a specific DBA or one that is still growing into the role. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is filled with hints, tips, and explanations of the various readings and metrics. This is very useful to help understand what is happening and why, what it means, and what some potential solutions are towards remediating any issues. This is extremely valuable for our development team, allowing them to be more proactive with the queries they write in viewing how they perform and where bottlenecks might be.
  • Ease of configuring alerting
  • Excellent tooltips and descriptions of issues
  • Clear breakdown of multiple metrics and performance statistics
  • A plethora of metrics are captured for analysis
  • Being able to alert on blocked sessions over a time period, rather than a flat value threshold
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to monitor the company's production SQL server. It's being used by the IT infrastructure and the Development departments. Mostly, it gives us an insight into what is going on behind the scenes and if there are any problems with the SQL server, if it's being slow, which queries are causing problems, etc.
It's particularly useful if you want to see what's going on on your SQL server behind the scenes and which queries are causing bottlenecks. If the SQL server is running slow, you can quickly identify the root cause. Also, you can look at various utilizations over time.
  • Shows SQL utilization over time.
  • Identifies slow queries.
  • Identifies bottlenecks.
  • Navigation can be tricky and it's not very intuitive.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use DPA for database monitoring across the enter enterprise, dev/QA and production. We connect it to Oracle, SQL and MySQL Database Servers. We use DPA as a single source of monitoring for database performance issues. The historical and real-time query monitoring allows us to troubleshoot and quickly identify the root cause of a poorly performing server.
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is great for monitoring Oracle and SQL databases for performance anomalies. When a user calls and says "It's slow" we have one [place] to go to review the data, zero on the problematic query and take action to resolve. In addition to being a great troubleshooting tool DPA also provides query tuning advice based on captured long-term analysis to spot inefficient patterns.
  • Database performance monitoring.
  • Database performance root cause analysis.
  • Server performance monitoring.
  • Licensing Model can be expensive on a per-instance basis, consider a per-host-based option.
  • Limited ability to combine monitoring results for similar groups of servers.
  • Different license types for different types of servers (Oracle Enterprise vs Standard).
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It allows us to keep a close eye on our database. In the event we run into slowdowns, we can easily identify the issue using SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer before larger issues pop up. Since we've implemented it, we are able to proactively keep our system running smoother with fewer service interruptions.
It's very helpful to have the robust reporting features available when you have a mission-critical database. We need to be aware of what is happening on our server and be able to tune and adjust as required to keep things running fast and smooth. SolarWinds DPA allows us to do this.
  • Automatically emails me weekly reports so I can keep an eye on our database performance.
  • Easily identify problem queries.
  • Helps us optimized our code.
  • The initial learning curve is a little steep.
  • A better explanation of the features would be nice.
  • Navigation is sometimes a little tough.
Nikhil Kumar Sharma | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for few of our customers to help in monitoring their Database Environment which includes Microsoft SQL, Postgre SQL, Oracle etc. Solarwinds DPA is primarily used by Database Administrators, Application Engineers (Read Only) and Tools Administrators. There are few interaction with Key Management stakeholders for data analysis but its relatively less.
Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer is well suited in below Scenarios -
1. End to End Database Instance Monitoring.
2. Database in Clusters Monitoring such as Availability Group in MS SQL, CDB in Oracle etc
3. If you want detailed monitoring with historical analysis.
4. SQL Statement Deep Dive Analysis for WAIT Time reason, Blockers, Deadlocks etc


Solarwinds DPA is not well suited if you are looking for Detailed VM, OS monitoring where Database is installed.
  • Multi Vendor Databases Monitoring
  • Agentless Monitoring
  • Less Dependency on DB Admins
  • Less Resources consumption on target databases
  • API based integrations
  • Cloud Database Monitoring such as Google native SQL service
  • Modern (no SQL ) database monitoring
  • Dashboard Flexibility
  • Reporting Flexibility
Darryl Hawes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used to monitor the ERP database, providing insights on performance and long-running queries. The alerts are used to notify of high license usage and deadlock events.
The more heavily a database is used, the more useful DPA is. A lightly used database will not get a lot of benefit. The business use of the database will also correlate to DPA's usefulness. In cases where performance can make or break a company, DPA can allow for a huge impact, if done right.
  • The alert configuration is very robust, allowing simple OOTB alerts as well as complex query-based alerts.
  • Blocking event tracking makes it easy to identify if a user's performance issue is a truly server-related performance problem.
  • Historical tracking of queries allows me to easily identify frequently used statements that might need tuning.
  • Some of the navigation leads to points that cannot be easily backed out of.
  • Some navigation points lead around in circles.
  • I would like to see index usage statistics as well as fragmentation.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the alerts to prevent problems. We use the performance data to diagnose and fix problems. We use the dashboard and drill down to know where we are at/know if we're doing well. We monitor any spikes or dips in overall response time to try to understand why users are having the UX they are experiencing.
The dashboard is great when you have dozens of instances you are administering. The free version used to be great for even tiny shops but was changed to crippledware. The history it keeps lets you diagnose a problem that happened yesterday or over the weekend or to see a pattern - does it happen at the same time every day or weekly on the same day of the week, etc.
  • The product is great at visualizing the data you need for administration and performance tuning, making it understandable in seconds. A database like Oracle has AWR reports - many pages long, all text, hard to read. SQL Server has dynamic management views - good stuff but not so easily accessible. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) lays it out so it is quickly comprehensible and actionable.
  • DPA tells us what's really going on. Example: the developer says this stored procedure is running super slowly in this RDBMS but runs like lightning on this other one. They've tried to tune it to no avail. So we spend just a few minutes with DPA investigating the situation and we find that the stored proc is running fine. Instead, it is the application's attempt to access the metadata about the proc that is slow. This led to caching the metadata and now the 'slow' proc is running great! Without DPA it would have been a long time before we got to looking at the right code to tweak.
  • It's great that we can use the built-in alerts functionality to create custom alerts. The custom alerts can gather information for the databases we are monitoring or from the data DPA collects which go beyond the database and into other relevant pieces like the OS, storage and the network.
  • It's a great product - they do most things right. Maybe I'll say keep working on the UI so I can get to the info I need with even fewer clicks.
  • One feature a competitor of DPA has that looks useful is mapping out when jobs are run and being able to map that time-wise against when problems occur.
Gus Gwynne | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used by the database team to monitor and tune database performance in both SQL Server and Azure Databases. Slow databases, timeouts on websites and in services and applications, can frequently be caused by the data layer, and this is the best tool I've ever used for troubleshooting that.
It works really well if you either have a limited number of servers or if you are focusing your attention on a small number. If you have a ton of micro-databases, it's not going to be the best option.
  • Tells you which statements in which stored procedures need work or are catastrophic (if that applies).
  • Helps you focus attention on what really needs work, very efficiently.
  • The UI gets clunky if you have lots of servers to monitor.
  • It doesn't really rank problems across multiple servers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In our company we use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for proactive performance monitoring and anomaly detection in database overall health. This product gives us a first look at the big picture of the database performance. We configured some alerts and mail notifications, which saves us a lot of time. Our most common use case is to react to changed execution plans and take appropriate actions before end users of the systems start to complain about performance problem and response times.
I think it is well suited for mission-critical databases where every percent performance is a must. Maybe it would do great work in a data warehouse too, especially in detecting performance loss in ETL jobs. Actually, I think it is well-suited in all the use cases, if you have enough licenses :).
  • Anomaly detection powered by machine learning - new in version 12, greatly love that statistical analysis
  • Compare workload versus past on daily basis and total, it really helps us to see big picture of growth and make capacity considerations
  • Intuitive performance analysis - easyly examine the problems and find the root cause
  • In the last two versions 12.0 and 12.1 SolarWinds has made great enhancements. I do not have a thing that I currently want to be changed. There are some cosmetics in the user interface but do not think that they are problems.
March 22, 2022

DPA: FTW.

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use DPA to manage a very large and somewhat cranky SQL environment for ambulatory healthcare end users (from providers and office managers to assistants and front desk personnel). The DB schema dates to the 1990s and requires regular supervision and management at a level the system vendor doesn't provide. Addressed problems include plan management, index addition and revision, partitioning and troubleshooting poor performance.
Well suited for large-scale implementations of SQL Server in distributed environments.
  • Near-instantaneous feedback on problem queries
  • Allows us to evaluate changes in the application or its stored procedures over time
  • We can drill down to the end-user level to identify potential issues, important with > 2000 sessions daily
  • Can't think of any feature or ops related issues. Prior complaints have all been addressed in newer updates.
  • Only main complaint is cost -- we would adopt for other servers if the incremental cost wasn't so high for a few additional instances (we have 3 servers we would like to use DPA with, but can't justify the x3 pricing per instance).
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to fine-tune SQL Server workloads and alert us to unexpected issues occurring on our database clusters. It helps us to see problems before they happen - long running queries or unexpected disk thrashing and to fix these problems before users become aware of a situation.
The product works incredibly well when trying to understand blocking and overall performance issues. It produces minimal load on the database server and provides a wealth of information. After you use the product to assist with urgent performance issues, it then alerts you to trends on your database server that may require your attention. By review these trends and adding indexes or modifying query patterns, you can substantially improve the performance and reduce the resources needed to running your database server. The software does require someone that understands query performance and optimization -- by no means does it do all of the work for you - but it does offer suggestions that are typically viable and worthwhile.
  • Analyzing query performance
  • Index recommendation
  • Wait time categorization and explanation
  • Navigation is generally good, but some items can be confusing to find again
Jennifer Aguilar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The tools you decide to use in your environment are only as good as the effort put in to make it a valuable asset to your organization. We run a Computer Aided Dispatch application that looks like a wagon wheel with interfaces. The application interfaces communicate to a database instance running in a cluster. Database Performance Analyzer has allowed our organization to fine-tune the database to the extent that we now know exactly when the database may be experiencing issues. The issues before used to be queries and users (machines). The database is running so efficiently now, we drill down to the machine that is causing the issue. It is generally a user that has kicked off a query that they should be running against the reporting server, not the live database. DPA is an amazing tool. I have a dashboard of off the "current" 10-minute slice in time. I can tell by a visual look if something is not right.
Database Performance Analyzer is a great fit for any database big or small. We also use it to monitor our GIS Database which is only accessed by a single user at this time. The tools assist in providing efficiency recommendations. When anyone uses a database, performance always seems to be an issue. DPA allows you to monitor systems, providing information to database administrators on how they can better manage the database. There are so many aspects to managing a database, it is really nice to have a tool that displays those granular issues that could never be solved without visibility into how the applications are interacting with the database.
  • Great Visual Display from Console - at a glance you can tell if there are issues
  • Drill down on a single query to get recommendations on tuning the statement
  • Automated Notifications, which can be customized / modified
  • Live view on Storage I/O
  • Resource Monitor is a plus - CPU Utilization - Instance and OS
  • Recently addressed - protect the supply chain
  • I can't keep up with all the improvements to tell you the truth ... Database Performance Analyzer is Awesome
  • Demo Database Performance Analyzer - you will not be let down
  • Join THWACK so you get the most out of your product. Great forum to get answers from colleges that may be experiencing the same issue!
Andre Du Plessis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer has been a crucial part of maintaining uptime on our databases. It helped find many issues, current or historical, on our databases. The main use case for getting SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer in the first place was to find out why we were having application problems and remove the black box state of our databases. Except for this, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer has proven useful in other areas as well such as the overall maintenance and performance analyzing of our databases.
Currently, we use mostly use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for:

  • Database alerts
  • Quick Analysis of performance for both the database and the server hardware
  • Root cause analysis of historic issues
  • Suggestions on improving the databases
  • Database performance analysis
  • Root cause analysis
  • Database alerts
  • Database job analysis
  • Tuning alerts as they are not as critical as they appear to be on the dashboard
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is used by our organization for monitoring our Oracle and SQL Server Databases. It is a complete Database monitoring and performance management tool used by our Database Team for optimizing Database performance and fine-tuning. It identifies bottlenecks and root causes for any issues related to the database. It has inbuilt anomaly detection for proactive monitoring (machine learning). It helps identify issues related to Storage IO, provides Query and Table Advisors for fine-tuning database queries, resources being used by the databases (CPU, Memory, Disk, ASM, etc.)
It helps identify underlying issues with the database, related to database performance, slow response, and long-running queries. It pinpoints application-related issues due to database performance. It is cross-platform and can support Oracle, SQL Server, and other database platforms on Windows, Red Hat, and Solaris.
  • Anomaly Detection.
  • Optimizing Database Performance.
  • Tuning Advisors and Query Wait Time Improvements.
  • Integration with Orion Platform.
  • Product Cost is High.
  • Anomaly Detection is only available for certain Database attributes (Wait Time).
Mike Saedi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a consultant, I recommend and use SolarWinds across multiple clients currently at Nortek/Broan-Nutone, BlastMotion, and Hansen and Adkins. I use this on a daily basis to assist me with monitoring SQL servers and assisting me with troubleshooting performance issues as they arise. I have also used SolarWinds DPA to set up alerts for issues like low drive space and query plan changes.
  • Excellent for trending SQL Performance over time.
  • Excellent for monitoring deadlocks and blocking.
  • Good for trending SQL query changes over time.
  • It would be nice to have more built-in alerting capabilities.
  • Indexing recommendations are also somewhat unclear. I have seen areas that say you could improve performance on a table for example but not giving any additional details beyond that.
  • More in-depth recommendations, other tools like Idera Diagnostic Manager I feel are stronger in this area.
I like the fact that I can visually see what my SQL server is doing over time and drill into top queries.
Alerting and notifications are not as strong as some other tools I have used.
Blocking and deadlocking features/analysis could be improved also.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used mostly by the development team as a self service gateway to view the database transactions that they don't have physical access to. This allows the database team to not have to take time out of their day to perform query analysis, etc..
  • It allows us to have a gateway to the databases that the users would not normally have access to.
  • It allows the database admins to not have to provide analysis as users can do their own through the interface.
  • It's a quick place to do an initial view into performance issues for DBA.
  • Would be nice to have more granular permissions.
It's well suited as a self help tool. It really saves time on our team so we don't have to provide guidance on issues or questions.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is used by the whole department, mainly for addressing performance issues; deadlocks; growth of database; DB reports; server reports; CPU, memory, and disk health; and their storage.
We're also setting up alerts as per the requirement.
  • Tuning
  • Deadlock issues
  • Blocking
  • Alerts
  • Reports
  • Performance tuning
  • Graphical representation of SQL agent jobs
  • Easy to create any graphs by adding tables or columns
  • Change the home page for more options
  • Best possible recommendations
If your operation is data driven, then you need to improve performance where SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helps. It is helpful if you have a big environment where your databases are dependent on timely fixes. It can also be used for resolving application deadlocks and the health of the database--also setting up alerts and adding more custom graphs.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is] used to monitor the performance on mission critical application databases, both bespoke and packaged applications. For bespoke applications, it is used to ensure that the code developed by our technology partners meets or exceeds the defined SLAs, as well as to alert of problems before they become critical issues. For packaged applications, it has been used to extract detailed information on performance issues, such that we were able to log extremely detailed issues with the vendors, such that they have all of the information needed to correct the underlying issue. For example, we were able to extract the run time of stored procedures, including all of the SQL statements executed, such that the vendor was able to pinpoint the issue rapidly and provide a resolution.
  • 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
  • Everything is displayed visually, if you need detailed metrics, you have to extract manually, it could use a report writer with export to Excel.
  • When a SQL statement is very long running, i.e. longer than the display interval, the display says that there are no statistics, it should on the other hand, show that the SQL statement is still running.
  • When you name a SQL statement, it should be by DB, rather than global
Very appropriate for use in performance testing
Very appropriate for alerting to performance issues before they become critical
Can be challenging when monitoring an Oracle active-active RAC database, as each instance is effectively a separate database.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use [SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer] for performance analysis for Oracle targets. It is used by the Infrastructure Department. It solves performance problems as they happen, or historically.
  • Speed
  • Ease of Use
  • Appearance
  • Detail
  • Setting up alerts and blackouts could use improvement
  • Should be able to flip between SQL ID and hash plan for queries
  • Some queries that run on the database instances themselves could use tuning
[SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is] well suited for historical performance metrics. Well suited for alerting based on custom queries. Not well suited for real-time metrics or session-level debugging.
Joseph Dixon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is being used by IT in our organization. It allows us to have a better window into what the SQL servers are doing, especially with regards to applications that are using these SQL servers. It allows us to root cause problems and to find problems before they become bigger problems.
  • Insight into query wait times
  • Ability to view Disk IO
  • Historical trending of wait times
  • Dated UI
  • Development servers are not free
  • Dashboard visualization of stats requires Solarwinds Performance Monitor (Included with Orion)
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer may have a dated UI, but don't let that deter you as what it really does well is give you the data you need to find issues and resolve them with your SQL Servers. It can also do Oracle and other platforms as well. Your servers being on the cloud is NOT a problem at all and we have full visibility into our Google Cloud database instances as well as our on-prem instances within the same pane of glass. If you have MySQL or PostgreSQL you might look into Solarwinds Database Performance Monitor instead, unless you have a mixture of both and want everything in one spot.
One thing to note is that you will need to host DPA yourself, it's not a cloud solution (although you can host it in the cloud if you prefer). This also means you have complete control over where this data resides.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it at the data warehousing and analytics group to monitor the load and set up alerts on the data warehouse server. We have set up alerts on long-running queries, blocking other queries, deadlocks, instance availability, unused indexes, etc. Some of them are very useful, but the deadlocks alert can be improved to show what queries were in the deadlock, so we can improve our solution.
  • We have set up alerts on long-running queries, blocking other queries, deadlocks, instance availability, unused indexes, etc.
  • The status summary is useful to see the load on the server.
  • Deadlocks alert can be improved to show what queries were in the deadlock, so we can improve our solution.
  • Deadlocks alert can be improved to show what queries were in the deadlock, so we can improve our solution.
  • We never got to setup https using the documentation provided by solar winds. We still keep getting https error when we access our DPA site.
  • A better technical customer service would help.
It is good to set up alerts on the database server. some of the alerts described in previous answers can be improved. Help on setup can be improved. As described earlier, we still do not have our DPA site set up with the security certificate and customer service did not help much.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it across our department to monitor our database landscape. We have different flavors of databases across our landscape, and SolarWinds for years has been an important part of the strategy for our monitoring solutions for the database tier across the landscape. It is very intuitive and quite easy to implement.
  • Immediate bottlenecks on the database tier.
  • Performance tuning.
  • Historical reports.
  • More details around the specific alerts which are raised on the console should be considered.
  • More information from a host layer monitoring could be handy as well.
  • A single layout for the report for all the different instances of DPA would be really handy. It is just tedious to go granular for all the instances across the landscape.
Very intuitive and easy for operations organizations to ensure that any symptoms which could lead to performance concerns on the database tier can be easily identified and looked at.
To ensure these issues can be given highest priority as and when any performance bottlenecks arise, the simple layout provided with the tool is really effective.
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