TrustRadius
Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer presents a database performance and development solution.https://media.trustradius.com/product-logos/Gg/Bs/POP0NKN189DG.JPEGSolarWindsAwesome Database Best Practice2019-05-31T19:03:58.688ZDPA is one of the support tools used by our organization, deployed on some departments where legacy system databases still exist. It empowers our operations when it comes to response time and ability to provide good reporting presentation. I've been in IT Service Delivery and Operation for 10 years, from my experience with different infrastructure and application issues, most of the pain points we've had is the application performance related problems. One of the stories I can share is that it enables us easily detect what is causing bottlenecks and as such good collaboration has emerged with our developers whether the issue lies on our databases or on their codes.,Maintainability and accommodating Support service and easy to follow Release Notes/Documentation.
The relevance of the pre-defined Reports and Checks.
Simplicity of the tool. Easy to use and understand.,Resiliency of the Monitoring checks after the server underwent maintenance reboot. My experience is the monitor (Action) needs to be started manually. If possible it can automatically detect service/server then start to monitor again when system is back up.
Much lighter UI.
Granularity up to minutes.,9,Positive impact for organization that works with agile development as the issue will be known ahead prior implementing in production.
Positive impact for Operations delivery responsiveness.,A good example is its use for monthly security patching of the server as a good tool for post validation. Its value is much emphasized for monitoring of database servers regardless of platform or numbers will be centralized. For root cause analysis which is a job that is causing so much wait and can be further tuned.,The tool was purchased 5years ago and I could not provide greater details due to limited experience and some of the folks are resigned.,,Not applicable. We aren't using the Orion platform.,Maria Cristina Dela PenaDPA: FTW.2019-05-01T15:56:55.427ZWe 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.,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).,8,DPA allows our DBA to be more agile and find solutions to SQL problems faster. This results in better service to our end users, and better performance on the EHR system to our providers, allowing them to complete chart service for a patient much faster.,We've had numerous cases where a report of slow performance has been traced to a specific user problem. We can make educated guesses regarding which user session is the proximate cause after the fact with native SQL tools like Profiler, but the 1-minute granularity of the DPA Timeslice allows us to respond much faster, to not only identify the problem session but to determine the cause and work up a solution.,This is a great capability that we use regularly to fine-tune stored procedures. The nature of our software suite doesn't allow us to modify all application queries, as much of the SQL code is launched by calls from the app itself and not through an SP, but we use the data from DPA as evidence to encourage our vendor to revise their code.,,We have not directly integrated Orion with DPA,Paul LandLife saver!2019-07-17T13:49:00.672ZDPA is used to monitor the performance of Oracle and MSQL databases. We added a highly critical system in DPA, and DPA can suggest performance enhancement based on findings over the period, like missing indexes and statistics. Also, during ad-hoc performance issues, this helps to identify the current performance, because of easy access like running a session, blocking, and querying a program that is running.,Index recommendation.
Tuning advisor.
Wait events.,Always-on monitoring.,8,Positive: we can address critical system issues promptly.
Improvement: we need more proactive monitoring alerts.,Our custom application had many missing indexes. We created many indexes based on the DPA suggestions.,Yes, we find missing indexes from the table tuning advisor created in production. We have seen performance improvements.,,Sadly, our environment was implemented in two different times and they used different Orion so we are not actually able to link all the scenarios.,Toad Data PointMohamed ShameerSolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer2019-06-11T22:14:07.324ZWe use this product across the whole organization for multiple applications.,Easy to use.
Flexible.
A good tool to analyze DB performance.,Needs a more alert setup
Needs 24/7 support.,7,Needs 24/7 support.
Future requests should have some ETA.,There are many examples in our NASDAQ environment. Most of the time we identify database related issue by checking SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer tool and it provides us a clear picture that what happens during a specific time in the database and helps us start investigating and find the root cause of the issue.,During a code call, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer tool helped us to identify a problem query with all of the details like why the query was not completed and what the reason was, etc. Also, it provides a suggestion to tune queries in a better way, but sometimes the suggestion doesn't help. so we need more accurate tuning decisions.,,We only use SolarWinds DPA.,Arun MWhy DPA can save your firm money, help developers, and ease DBA job.2019-02-15T18:14:32.122ZWe run six separate DPA servers covering three different database software vendors. Coverage includes TEST Databases where developers can instantly observe metrics from their most recent changes. Production coverage, of course, is crucial to rapidly identify SQL and VM performance matters and observe changes based on the volume of transactions. This tool is the first place hundreds of developers, admins, and managers use to check app performance.,Top N SQL queries.
Outstanding UI for rapid examination and drill down to detail data.
Intuitive UI design - better than any other product in its category.
Enabled us to immediately shift DB related performance matters first to developers so that our DBA's can focus on more important matters.,Allow alerts to SMS (text message).,10,Total requests to DBA team dropped several hundred percent after the rollout of the tool. Since the tool works so well, developers/managers/admins are requested to FIRST analyze by themselves, and only after their inability to identify or resolve the problem, promote to the DBA team.
Ease of implementation and upgrades combined with self serve monitoring, automated reporting, and alerts have all reduced valuable DBA team effort and time, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.,Insights provided by the tool rapidly and continually allow developers to code and modify increasing transaction throughput and reducing transaction time. Personally, I've identified and validated transactions in question. Also, I use this tool to compare new releases of application software against past performance. The top N SQL list is an excellent metric to first investigate after any application upgrade.,Any Tuning advise is worth investigation. Past experience implementing suggestions from Tuning Advisors has significantly increased transnational throughput.,Datadog and DynatraceCraig SolinskiAwesome Tool for SQL Performance Tuning2019-06-01T15:05:45.759ZIt is used by the database team to monitor and tune database performance in both SQL Server and Azure Databases.,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.,I can't think of any examples for this question.,10,Not my current employer, but a previous one. We had a deployment of a large amount of code, including numerous database changes. The next day, everything that depended on that database server was down and the server was slammed to 100% CPU, RAM, and I/O. It would have been very difficult to identify exactly what was wrong, but it took only seconds to pull up Database Performance Analyzer and find the exact problem, and then less than a minute to patch the exact proc that had a problem. The whole company was locked out of business-critical sites and tools, and it could have taken hours to analyze the issue by means like traces, DMVs, etc. Instead, it took almost no time at all.,See my previous answer, please.,Haven't needed this.,,We don't use that.,Gus GwynneGreat for general monitoring2019-01-29T19:39:55.008ZSolarwinds Database Performance Analyzer is being used to monitor for issues with our SQL Servers by our organization. We use it to provide a baseline and display opportunities for improvement. The tuning feature helps us find bottlenecks and provide index suggestions. Our software development department uses the tool to show how the code has affected database performance. The network operations department monitors the data to find areas that may need upgraded hardware or configuration changes.,Displaying baselines helps to show management how a change has affected performance positively or negatively.
The tuning feature is helpful in showing areas that could be improved with an index or code updates.
Wait statistics information is very helpful to diagnose database bottlenecks.,Naming the hash takes more steps then it did in the past.
It would be nice if there was a way to group the wait statistics by procedure.
I search feature would be helpful.,8,The tuning suggestions reduced wait statistics by 80% when a new procedure was introduced without proper indexing.
Code has been reverted thanks to the data provided by SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.,A new procedure was introduced to make things more efficient. After it was deployed, the performance got worse. Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer showed that a new index was needed and it would improve performance. After utilizing the advice, we realized the efficiencies with the new procedure.,The index suggestions have been helpful. When new procedures have been introduced, the Table Tuning Advisors has made significant improvements.,Emmanuel BradleyDo you want to know the truth of why something happened (and be able to prove it)?2019-05-16T20:10:16.907ZBeyond day-to-day monitoring, the DPA (Database Performance Analyzer) is key to anyone who needs to look back in time to provide Trending and/or Root Cause Analysis, whether database related or not. There are suspects and culprits, and this product can help to identify them. DPA is very, very detailed, and you can zero in on an issue, all the way down to a minute timeframe if you are willing to do the cross analysis work. This product is A+ and can be used for Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server.,Problem categorization.
Problem identification.
Serious trending analysis.,When presenting possible sources of issues, it may be better to first give a list overview, and then proceed to drill down into the details.,10,Trending of issues.,Suppose someone complains about a problem (i.e. performance, access, connections, etc.) but they cannot provide enough solid technical details. Could they provide an approximate timeframe? Now you can go in and determine what normal and abnormal really was. In fact, you might be able to precisely define their approximate timeframe down to the minute. I.e. when did the issue really start, and when did the issue really end, by trending and comparing. Yes, you have to do the lookup work and cross-comparison work, but DPA already captured the multiplicity of details. This DPA is a serious investigation tool. Someone once came to me complaining about slowness. DPA led to the precise Lock/Block situations (several) and the exact timeframes (since the issue came and went). There is no randomness here. It can all be explained.,We have not yet investigated this feature.,SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor,Steve ShandroDPA is a helpful monitoring and analytical tool2019-05-15T17:01:39.686ZWe use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to predict the behavior of our campaigns and e-marketing. With SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, we can check the performance of our databases and how the behavior will be during high load works in the season and spikes that are associated with our day by day jobs.,Predict performance across all databases
Predict unexpected behavior
Make a correct forecast about how much memory and CPU could be needed for a particular job,The agent usually consumes a lot of memory
High cost, since it is charged per instance.
An efficient and intelligent search feature would be helpful.,8,DPA is licensed per instance analyzed. Thus, we only monitor the higher priority database servers.
DPA helps our DBAs to make easier to monitor multiple databases
Some database issues can be resolved within minutes instead of hours as before.,SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helped us to understand why we were getting CPU and mem spikes during some particular campaigns on which a complex filter was being used. We determined that some conditions in the filter were causing some loops that were affecting our performance, thus creating bottlenecks and continuous degradation.,Since we have been using DPA we have implemented some new indexes suggested by the advisor. After that, we have never used the feature again. Being honest, we don't have had much time to dive into this new feature. We would like to have some more expertise to make a valid comment on this feature.,SolarWinds Network Device Monitor,Being honest, I'm not sure if we use the Orion platform in our organization. Since I'm the manager I'm not completely involved in the processes and different tools used to have SolarWinds NDM and DPA working properly. I would like to have some more expertise to make a valid comment on this platform.,Ariel PortocarreroSolarWind's products make IT infrastructures work better2019-05-09T13:02:08.085ZMonitoring databases is always a critical topic for a database administrator, but SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer made is easy with real-time monitoring for DB status using query's hash, CPU time, programs, database query plans. Users, as well there other machines for correlation DB integration in multiple databases, query analyzer helps to display the historical graphs for understanding the behavior and provide reports complete for first glance understanding of abnormal or normal statuses.,Multiple database real-time performance/status in single windows with an easy illustration using graphs.
Query analyzer and identify plan text.
Overall database status monitoring and reporting.,Plan hash and plan adviser.
DB color and grouping for interdependent query's relation.
Point the users and identify single users for multiple DB Access Scenarios.,9,SolarWinds help DB administrators and make it easy to monitor multiple database scenarios.
Just a single inspection is required for overall monitoring of user and impact of query's in correlated database integration.,database abnormal utilization can Couse the overall application performance, the solarwinds database performance analyzer help to monitor the DB status and make operation DB administrator easy to identify which database performance is effected to mitigate the issue.once in our application developments release the new builds for users and its overconsumption in production environment is easy identified by solorwinds database performance analyzer with a report to application team understanding.,Our Operation team takes advantage of the powerful advisor which help them to take the necessary action as well as required information for a further update or involve the Application team to query optimization.,SolarWinds Network Device Monitor
SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor
SolarWinds Netflow Traffic Analyzer
SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor,integrating SolarWinds DPA with the SolarWinds Orion platform allows database data to be viewed alongside other environmental factors such as VM, network devices and gateways to provide a completely comprehensive and single glance view of the overall environment, which help in:MonitoringIdentifying correlation in devicesDetection Alerts and reporting Decision making Performance improvement Reduce the multiple overall operation cost on NOC and operations,IBM QRadar and openSUSE KIWIMohit TiwariDPA was the perfect choice2019-05-08T23:34:14.775ZIt is used in the whole company for analyzing problems or performance issues on all SQL Servers which hold in-house created DBS and commercial products. It is vital for reviewing what happened during weekends or spare days. Also vital, is the development of the wait time of some servers for future sizing.,Very easy to use user interface. Also very handy for new users with a short time of introduction.
Very good overview on all servers added. You can see in one sight which servers are busy.
Well created metrics, a good starting point for adapting them.
Alert system is very useful.,No possibility to create overview groups to bundle SQL servers in more than one group.
If an agent has an error there should be the possibility to send an alert.
No support for by-products.,9,Better distribution of resources.
Good reports for proving that there isn't a real DB problem.
A good help for examining performance problems.,When installing a new product there were particular issues. The source of these issues couldn't really be addressed by external consulters. Database Performance Analyzer helped a lot by showing that two statements were parallel and caused a blocking which wasn't expected by the external consulters. As it was reproducible, the cause was accepted by the software vendor.,Customized products are often not optimized and are only tested with a tiny number of records. But when it comes to living there suddenly is a point where hardware couldn't compensate for the inefficiency caused by missing indexes and inefficient statements as the root for performance problems. Their DPA always is a good point to discuss and implement changes,SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor,We don't use Orion at all as we use database performance analyzer as a stand alone product.,Idera Uptime Capacity MonitorAlexander VeitscheggerDPA allows Nasdaq DBAs to troubleshoot performance issues quickly and easily2019-05-01T13:42:45.887ZNasdaq uses SolarWinds DPA for performance troubleshooting and MSSQL Job failure alerts. DPA allows us to quickly identify performance issues both during a crisis and proactively. It's also an easy way to monitor Job failures and other critical conditions across several hundred servers.,Clear, Concise Performance Information
Server Alerts are quick and easy to setup,DPA could allow longer custom names, and reuse of names
DPA could allow easier location of all executions of a query matching a certain pattern,10,DPA has allowed Nasdaq to reduce the time needed to troubleshoot performance issues
DPA has allowed us to locate issues that were previously unresolved,SolarWinds DPA has helped Nasdaq with issues that are difficult to troubleshoot. It gives a great insight into block, idle blocking, and non-standard wait scenarios.,NA, only recently moved to version 12 due to backend RDBMS incompatibility. SolarWinds Customer Support was very helpful with getting a release for Maria DB backend.,John DowlingDPA helps us with ongoing identification of slow running SQL code2019-04-19T15:58:30.113ZWe use it to monitor our complex solution that provides location and video feed for a fleet of connected vehicles. The solution is an extremely complex set of MSSQL Databases with constant data flow of around 5000 messages per minute. Each message required several different post-processing tasks that are developed as SPs Triggers and Jobs in the SQL server. We make a lot of changes to the solution constantly. Sometimes these can result in a massive slowdown speed in parsing of the incoming messages. We use the DPA to analyze the situation when this happens and to catch the piece of SQL code that is causing this to resolve real-time issues.,Quickly points out what is slowing down our SQL server
Provides daily statistics on most ran queries and their wait time
Operates flawlessly with no maintenance,Sometimes it cannot tell the SQL query text - I believe its when Entity Framework SQL is being ran
Email notification when a SQL statement starts "killing" the whole server
Full text search of specific SQL termS in all of the SQL code that it has captured,9,Positive is we are now able to resolve Live DB issues within minutes where previously it could have taken us hours or days,Yes as described earlier we have had 2 major issues where we have used DPA to find out the root cause - this was very easy as it was the SP that was running particular SQL code that the DPA highlighted as top of the results because of its longest wait time.,We have used a new index suggested by the advisor once - only recently so we dont have enough info to report anything more just yet.,We don't use the Orion platform,Microsoft SQL Server and Redgate SQL MonitorBrano PajerI am ineffective without DPA2019-03-22T22:23:00.792ZIt is used mostly by developers to identify bottlenecks but also by server admins to identify config or load issues. It is limited to use within the IT dept.,I have used it to demonstrate disk issues to server admins by showing them the drastic increase in DB Commit times which turned out to be a failed NIC.
I routinely use it to identify blocking sessions to verify ETL job issues.
I use the waits and the top SQL to monitor system performance issues.,I would like to have some visibility into the alert log in DPA.
I would like to have tablespace/datafiles information regarding space and items contained in them.,10,DPA saves me about 20 hours a month.,We had a NIC that failed and it was only because I could show the huge increase it disk waits to the server admins which gave them visibility into the issue.,Well, we do use the explain plan feature to identify index issues.,We are looking at adding Orion to our site later this year.,DBArtisan and Oracle Enterprise ManagerTim PowersSolarWinds DPA Review2019-03-15T23:24:54.484ZWe use DPA to monitor our AWS SQL RDS Instance for performance. We use it to troubleshoot congestion and tune queries. We also use DPA on our development and staging SQL DBs to analyze performance before new code is released into production.
Over the years DPA has helped us to resolve a lot of issues with blocking, locking, and excessive CPU utilization. We have done this both in real-time, during outages, and as part of our development pipeline.,Real-time viewing into wait statistics, blocking and locking.
Valuable query and table tuning advice.
Historical tracking of wait times.,The drill down usability is cumbersome.
It's sometimes difficult to navigate exactly to where you want to be.
Could use more information around parameters.,8,It has helped us resolve issues faster than we could without the tool, often times allowing us to resolve issues before our end users notice.Paul LaPostaGreat tool that works for you, not against you2019-03-15T18:24:34.204ZWe have a hosted environment (in the cloud) and before we had this product if there was any type of blip, slowness/lockup we had zero insight as to what could have caused it. SolarWinds allows us to go back in Hx and see what happened and sometimes even offers up a suggestion on tuning about how best to handle it in the future.,Catches long-running queries that would normally have to sit and watch to catch.
Ensures the resources on the server are adequate if not gives you a birds-eye view on when it gets bad and returns to normal. For example, maybe in the middle of the night when you are asleep, knowing the CPU is maxing wouldn't be an issue, as you would see this in the Hx information.
If you have long-running queries and are aware of them, you can mark those with a name, either keep them on the Hx chart or set them aside to focus on new issues.,There is not a lot, but one thing I would suggest is when SolarWinds gives you reported information— for example, this query has run 1500 times, for a total of 56 million reads—It doesn't have a way to break it down and show me all queries that have read 500K or larger. Much like a SQL profiler would.,9,It has allowed us to scale back on RAM, because if you have some long-running stored procedures that consistently flush your tempDB, then adding RAM covers up the issue, but doesn't fix the problem.
As I am only monitoring 3 or 4 servers, the impact it has on our customer base is massive because it allows us to fix the issue once and it be replicated across customer base.
the direct ROI is manpower. it replaces having to watch performance monitor 24/7.,Obviously, having knowledge of what your program does, knowing what are the normals—for example, reindexing the database. Going through historical information and not just seeing what is reported, but more importantly what is NOT reported allows you to find something that otherwise you would have to watch during the off hours, as in maintenance windows. Noticing a table scan when its normally not an issue, then determining the index is not being used because it's fragmented, things like that.,This is a newer feature that was put in but I haven't had the amount of experience needed to be able to comment. I like the idea, I just don't have enough experience in using this feature.,n/aLes RobinsonDPA: Would not be able to do my job well without it!2019-03-15T18:06:21.514ZI am the sole user of DPA and use it to monitor our two primary Oracle SE production databases running on VM. I use it to monitor resource usage, blocks, waits and make good use of the tuning advisor. The databases are hybrid OLT/warehouse with automatic data loads happening 24x7 and heavy reporting processes during business hours. DPA helps me balance performance between these.,The tuning advisor quickly guides me to where the biggest performance issues are.
There's a lot of built-in "help," definitions and possible actions to take.
Alerts and trending information are very helpful.,I have to frequently and repeatedly click the "Dismiss" button on banner messages that appear at the top of the screen. They're just annoying.,10,We are a small IT shop. I have been the DBA for many years and am now both IT Manager and Senior DBA. I'm also a database application developer. DPA helps me to be an efficient DBA by alerting me to problems.,Tuning advisor pointing to adding or modifying indexes to improve performance.,Yes.Elizabeth Davis-NolandDPA is A-OK2019-03-01T19:10:19.641ZWe use DPA to locate issues within our application communicating with SQL. We also look for any long running queries that can be tuned to be more efficient. It has helped us narrow down several issues in our application code.,Detailed information on SQL queries.
Good analysis of where problems are occurring.
The lookups are very quick.,The cost of this tool is pretty high, especially when using other SolarWinds products.
A more user-friendly UI would be helpful.,8,I think DPA has provided a good ROI. We have used it to find some long-running issues that several of our customers have seen, and then fixed those issues.,We had several locks on our SQL environment and were never able to clearly pinpoint where those were occurring until we started using DPA. It shows clearly where the lead blockers are and what is being affected. It also shows detailed information on the query being run, which makes it easier to analyze and fix the issue. It allows you to do the searching without actually being logged into SQL, which is a benefit when CPU is locking you out.,We have used the table tuning to identify issues where tables might need to be reindexed or culled to allow for better performance.,We've used the DPA and Orion integration to easily see where a spike in CPU on our web servers may be caused by a SQL query gone wrong. It's nice to be able to see the correlation in one place before digging in. It definitely makes finding the fix faster.Joshua HeadDPA Review2019-02-28T17:30:46.419ZWe use the Database Performance Analyzer as part of the monitoring tool kit for the Database Administrators. It has helped to reveal multiple SQL query issues by older programs running on the system and get them corrected. We also use it to notify us if jobs are failing and servers are going down, as well as many other checks on a multitude of servers.,Notification of jobs failing.
notification of someone making server level changes to an SQL server.
Monitoring how busy the servers are.,Make all the resource graphs a little longer, especially the 24 hours and 1 week. 25-26 hours and 8-9 days so it is easier to compare what is going on.
Ability to customize the charts on the home screen.
Make some of the most popular customer alerts apart of the default list.,8,It has greatly decreased the amount of time I have to spend going from server to server manually to check on them.,Query kept failing after running too long and the analyzer helped to identify what was happening.,Query kept failing after running too long and the analyzer helped to identify what was happening. It turned out to be a missing an index and the query was trying to pull way too much data.,N/A,Gerald HarperMy SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Review2019-02-21T03:18:33.203ZWe used SolarWinds DPA to monitor two of our main production MS SQL Servers. We are running our ERP, WMS, and several other key applications on these two main SQL Servers.
Since we don't have a full-time DBA, we are not using DPA to its fullest, we mainly use it as a troubleshooting tool when needed.
There were a number of incidences when we had serious performance issues on the SQL Server, and DPA was able to help us to narrow down the type of issue, and the process that was causing the issue, which helped us to get the issue resolved quickly (by killing the process causing the deadlocks, etc.)
At the beginning of our DPA deployment, it also helped us to identify a number of expensive queries that will need to be optimized so that we can focus on improving these queries, and as the result of this, we improved the overall system performance.,It provided a clear picture of how the system is performing, and which queries took the longest time to run.
For the queries that took a long time to run, it provided us with the detailed analysis and recommendation on where was the problem and how to improve.
When system has deadlocks -- it helped us to narrow down exactly which process was causing the problem, so that we were able to just kill that specific process to get the problem fixed, without the need to shut down all applications and reboot the whole SQL server.,We also have one SQL server that has very light workloads, but from time to time DPA will still show CPU or query alerts on that server, which I believe were the false positives.,7,In the past 4 years, DPA helped us to troubleshoot around 10 incidences of SQL server performance issue.
We normally have no performance issue on SQL Servers, those incidences are all we had encountered since we deployed BPA. The good thing is, DPA was able to provide some kind of help in every case.
With the help from DPA, we were able to resolve the issues quickly (normally within 5 to 10 minutes), and avoided shutting down the production systems during business hours.,It has been quite some time since our last incidence with a performance issue on SQL Server, so I don't remember the details at this moment.,Justin Wang, MBA, MSc, MMA (in progress)SolarWinds FTW!2019-02-05T23:54:54.953ZWe are currently using DPA to check the reliability and speed of our databases and use the reporting to streamline our queries. We have had issues in the past due to slow response times from SQL servers and didn't know what was causing the issues. Using DPA allowed us to determine if it was hardware limitations or an issue in the query that was making the responses slow down.,Reporting, the detailed information regarding the issues it is showing.
Easy to Use Interface.,A better explanation of how to use the SQL plan should be implemented.
Implement recommendations from the console.,9,Not enough time to determine ROI,We have a financial database that is constantly referenced to create accounts for new hires or any moves they make within the district. The queries that run are very complex and run every few hours to make any updates to our AD groups. This has allowed us to streamline those to be more efficient,How could you not? Our Anti-virus database had this exact issue. It was causing abnormally slow response times for client tasks to be performed.,At this point, it has not been integrated into our Orion platform.,SolarWinds Network Device MonitorJose ParraSolarWinds, Hit after Hit. Keep the great products coming.2019-02-02T02:04:08.658ZWe use the performance analyzer to check the reliability and speed of our databases. We have had issues in the past due to slow response times from SQL servers and were unaware of the source. Using DPA, we were able to determine if it was hardware or an issue in the query that was making the responses slow down.,Interface is user friendly
Extremely detailed reports,Explaining in depth on how to use the SQL and how the plan should be implemented
Implement recommendations from the console,8,ROI unknown at this time,We run a database in our district that is constantly referenced to create accounts for new hires or any internal moves during employment. The queries that run are extremely complex and run frequently, updating our AD groups as needed. This has allowed us to stream those functions and clear up some of the overhead.,Our Anti-virus database had this issue. It was causing abnormally slow response times for client tasks to be performed.,John GonzalezSolarWinds DPA is an Excellent Performance Monitoring Tool for SQL Server2019-02-02T01:20:19.821ZAs 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.,9,I definitely receive value from this product. Before DPA, I could not easily pinpoint why my SQL Server was slow at any given point in time.
The graphs and trending also help me visualize where problems are and fix and address them much more quickly.,We had an issue recently where we experienced poor performance of a query due to a plan change. DPA pointed this out and I adjusted how often I updated my statistics, which helped this query. I would have a hard time knowing that the query plan change was the root cause of the issue had DPA not told me.
One thing that might be helpful though would be if DPA saw this plan change and then told me I should update my statistics, since I had to figure this out and do this separately on my own.,I feel like this needs a little more work and more details. Indexing recommendations from DPA are usually good, but the table level tuning advisors I feel do not provide enough details to help much. If they expanded this area this would help the tool out a lot.,SQL Sentry, SQL Diagnostic Manager, Redgate SQL Monitor and FoglightMike SaediSolarwinds from an application standpoint.2019-02-01T19:09:23.586ZIt is primarily used by the Business Intelligence department and now and then by the IT department. Currently, we use it to monitor our database systems, most especially our EHR system. DPA allows me to monitor day to day operations, the health of the database systems, and any special issues that arise in our EHR vendor's code. As a BETA client for our EHR vendor, I've used it to monitor new code that may be having an increased impact on the database and use DPA's reports to start the conversation with the developers.,Real-time monitoring and notification of blocks and deadlocks on the database.
Real-time notification of outages, including overnight issues that may arise.
Ongoing monitoring, query by query, showing the impact of resources and utilization.,Navigation is not always intuitive. Sometimes I need to drill down into 10-minute layers just to access a piece of information that I would have preferred to find at the hour or day level.,10,Time has been a big bonus as it handles a lot of monitoring for me and requires me to spend less time staring at Profilers.
Vendor choices sometimes conflict with DPAs licensing model. We now have three applications that require their own instance of SQL. If it's not solo on that instance, the vendor will not support it. This then causes us to cringe at licensing another instance of DPA to monitor one application that was poorly developed.,We've used it multiple times to have conversations with developers regarding bad queries that consume too many resources or execution plans that are not optimal causing abnormally high usage. DPA helps us identify those plans, target them and then we purge those plans from the cache and the database begins to respond normally again after rebuilding that plan.,Because we do not directly develop, this has had some limited success. Usually, we are using this data to have a conversation with the developers of the application and try to affect change with them.Jason BrokawWhat a tool !2019-01-29T19:08:33.603ZDPA at Reliance is used within the IT department only. We monitor the performance of SQL queries as well as to see if we have any issues with the resources. I use the information provided by DPA to optimize the worst performing queries. I concentrate on instances with highest wait time and SQL with the highest percentage of instance execution time. We also use DPA to check for blocking and deadlocks.,DPA tells you if there are missing indexes.
DPA gives you predicate warnings for SQL queries.
DPA monitors main resource performance counters for the VM and host and also read and write latencies for data partitions.,We DBAs often don't have enough insight into the type of hardware being used. For example I'd like to know if our SAN presents new pages as pre-initialized or the operating system re-initialize the pages.
I'd like to be able to see in DPA if our infrastructure performs physical file fragmentation on our SAN.
I would like to see IO blocks size that was used for SQL Server and other internals from infrastructure side that we DBAs don't have visibility.,9,We are very satisfied with the product. SolarWinds DPA has had a positive impact on our business objectives.,We had many cases where DPA identified a missing index which we added to production and which had greatly improved the performance of the queries. More recently we had a case where DPA had predicate warning for CONVERT_IMPLICIT function that was used due to the mismatch of data types. Due to the data type precedence, this caused the table scan. Once I changed the data type to the same type the table scan was replaced with the seek and SQL query executed much faster.,Table tuning advisor often points to inefficient execution plans. We examine the execution plans and make changes following the hints from table tuning advisor.,We don't use Orion platformNatasa Stojsic
Windows, AWS Marketplace app
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
133 Ratings
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