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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 Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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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 46)
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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 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.
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).
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!
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 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.
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 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our business lines span many industries and have a vast array of projects in production. Many of the environments we have must be segregated, and SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer offers us a clear, detailed view of these environments through a single pane. Our DBAs can more quickly address issues and quickly settle the "hardware versus software" debate between engineers and developers.
  • Alerts us of current issues affecting system performance
  • Alerts us of potential issues that will affect system performance
  • The licensing timeline needs improvement. Adding new instances becomes cost-prohibitive at some times of the year due to the locked-down renewal period.
In an environment where many developers and DBAs are often working separately from each other on some projects and together on others, it gets difficult to see where the lines are between applications and databases. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer allows me as a manager to pinpoint issues and to get our developers or DBAs involved as appropriate to resolve issues that happen, and address issues that haven't happened yet. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is worth a whole 9 of uptime in and of itself.
January 24, 2020

DPA user

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used for database performance monitoring. It has helped us in addressing slow queries and other resource issues.
  • Highlights slow queries.
  • Drill down options to the second for troubleshooting.
  • Better suggestions for indexes.
It is well suited to troubleshoot slow queries. I like the new Tuning Advisor section.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
DPA is an essential part of performance monitoring our hybrid Demand Management Solution for hosted customers, and select on-premise customers. Automation is essential considering the number of customers, the schema comprising approaching 3,000 tables and over 5,000 code artifacts. Daily summaries of the last 3 days of Top SQL resource consumers give us ongoing snapshots by which to spot trends and anomalies that DPA's functionality enables us to investigate to query and table level.
  • Automated Collection into a queryable repository - Hands-off, detailed collection assures us that the bulk of any performance issues are noted, so that their data can be presented on-demand in a readily consumable form. Drill-into features enable detailed analysis.
  • Performance Trend Analysis - Monthly top-consumers visualized in meaningful stacked-charts, with anomaly highlights and per-query, per-day detail enables hot-spot drill-down analysis.
  • Resource Utilization Warnings - Best-practice warning and critical measure applied to all facets, visualized in real-time are essential features that trigger troubleshooting.
  • Usability within the Trends and Current pages need improvement - Version 11 introduced a new Tuning feature, and changed the way one could quickly name a query and chose whether it would be of further interest, or is more infrastructure-oriented such that exclusion is warranted. Usability took a downward slide.
  • Resource Utilization has preset periods which, for longer durations, overly smooth charts. Custom periods are much needed via the UI, rather than repository-querying.
  • Storage analysis, similar to resource usage, needs custom periods and far greater ability to delineate between drives and files than v11 currently offers. (One rarely uses the Storage I/O tab)
Having used DPA for a multi-tenant, single DB server, SaaS, solution, and currently monitoring over 30 productions and QA DB servers, on a server-per-customer basis, SaaS solution, both are entirely appropriate DPA targets. Wherever lower spend due to optimized DB performance is considered, DPA is one of the best tools to meet that kind of objective.
November 24, 2019

Would be lost without it

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Used to monitor production database performance and identify areas for tuning.
  • Allows instant identification of highest impact performance issues
  • Provides visibility of database load across the application
  • Easy to configure and use
  • It's a great product. I really can't identify any cons.
It's useful for DBAs as well as application developers, by providing visibility of performance issues in an easy to understand graphical format. It then allows you to drill into the issue and identify how to resolve.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Solarwinds Database Performance Analyser across several teams in and around the IT department. It's used to pinpoint issues with databases or SQL statements, generally on production databases. While Solarwinds Database Performance Analyser won't tell you anything that a real live DBA wouldn't be able to find out, it does allow non-DBAs like myself to get an initial problem diagnosis quite quickly and suggest to the relevant teams where they should be looking to resolve the problem.
  • Pinpoints potential issues with databases.
  • Suggests remediation for these problems.
  • Allows you to narrow down to particular points in time where the problems were observed.
  • It does take a while to gather enough data to suggest problems and fixes. Generally speaking, while you'll get some data back in an hour or two, you want at least 2 days of monitoring to get the best results.
  • Licensing is a bit restrictive.
  • Switching licenses between monitored nodes is a bit annoying.
This is an excellent tool to allow non-DBAs insight into the inner workings of a database server. I'll provide suggested solutions that, while they should be verified by an actual DBA, allow for initial problem diagnosis. Don't expect this tool to instantly fix your database problems, though. It takes a couple of days to get enough data for accurate diagnosis and suggested remedies, and just because an index might help doesn't mean that it will!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
To support performance monitoring for SQL servers across the organization.
  • Monitors both SQL query performance and back end VM resources.
  • Easy to read trend charts, bottlenecks or spikes show up immediately.
  • East to drill-down into specific issues.
  • Very good settings for alerts.
  • Poor interface for managing alert times or blocking out alerts at times of the week. Very tedious process.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use DPA on one team in our department. We have a team of 12 that has access to the tool, although it is mainly just three of us that use it. We do export reports and send to people outside of our team. The tool addresses anomalies that come up across the environment, and patterns before and after changes. We also use it a lot to see what was going on after-hours or when we had an issue come up when no one was available.
  • Capturing wait statistics is a great way to monitor performance on a SQL Server instance. This is the main source of info for DPA.
  • Web app: no client install required. Easy to login from a web browser, share info and manage everything from a browser tab.
  • Drill-downs from one time interval to seconds to see database activity is intuitive and easy to use.
  • 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.
DPA is well suited for an environment where a web app is preferred. Especially if there are several users accessing the reports and data. I would also say it's suited for teams with a good amount of SQL knowledge pertaining to wait types. It would be less suited for teams that need a tool to recommend changes to SQL queries to improve performance, as well as those looking for a tool to send out actionable-alerts that can be turned on or off based on actions.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Even though I would consider myself as highly skilled in SQL Server, I found we were spending a lot of our time trying to detect and analyse database performance issues, with varied success. SolarWinds DPA allowed us to almost forget about that entirely, and let us concentrate on the more interesting day to day stuff, sending us emails when things went a bit crazy, and displaying graphs of current activity, which we put on large screens so we can keep half an eye on what's going on.
  • Detecting blocking
  • Showing missing index information
  • Highlighting the most expensive queries being run in your system
  • Giving a daily summary of issues
  • Showing performance history over a long period of time
  • The GUI is a little clunky, could do with updating and make it responsive
  • A mobile app would be great, to keep an eye on things on the go
  • Perhaps a cut-down version, as sometimes there's just TOO much information!
For discovering performance bottlenecks, SolarWinds is absolutely invaluable. Once it's installed (which is a simple process) it completely looks after itself. Finding the blocking process can be a real headache in pure SQL, grabbing process IDs and checking manually up the chain until you find the root process - by which time it's often stopped blocking! SolarWinds does this for you without thinking.
June 28, 2019

NCTradeToolReview

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The product best serves its purpose as it works in the background on databases that we have configured as licensed targets. Having almost 400 databases across many environments and platforms, it assists in allowing me to "watch" the customer databases that are needing to be watched with more than just casual monitoring. It allows me to watch wait-issues across releases of our product specific to that customer. It is an invaluable tool.
  • Ability to drill down to wait for the issue and have a clear path as to what may be causing the issue.
  • Ability to quickly add a new target and the ease of installation and upgrades.
  • Reporting features to group my most troublesome customers into a daily report in one email.
  • Excellent customer support on any issues I can't immediately solve.
  • At this time it solves all my needs, and it appears that your folks have the pulse of this tool as the releases always give me something better to use.
A user jabbers to me that over the last week or so the EDI-messaging appears to be slowing down. My first step of course is to glance at the logs from the database to see if there are any database issues, and I rarely find anything there. My next step is to pull up that customer in DPA and look for trends in the time period the user has described. I have yet to not find a direct correlation to the time periods the user has described and the graphical output in DPA. From there it is a simple task to determine which queries are causing the issue, if it's a resource issue, can it be addressed in the short term or do I need to do further research for a longer term solution.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We're using SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer on a daily basis for:
  • monitoring our Oracle RAC performance
  • searching for performance bottlenecks
  • analyzing historical data and trends
  • solving developers problems
It's our one and only database monitoring solution.
  • It's super helpful when hunting down problems with performance.
  • It's easy to install and configure.
  • It doesn't require crazy computation power or tons of memory.
  • DBA-friendly.
  • GUI/UI could be more modern.
  • Pricing: it's reasonable but not cheap.
  • Deep integration with AWS managed databases would be really nice.
It's a great alternative to Oracle Enterprise Manager especially when you on a standard database license. If you're in a cloud environment like AWS your monitoring options are slightly limited. It would be great if SolarWinds could add some integrations with CloudWatch and native RDS, Aurora, etc. metrics to correlate database performance with "hardware" metrics.
June 07, 2019

My DPA-review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am the only user of the department that uses SolarWids Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) almost every day. I use DPA for monitoring a single Oracle production database, and gets alerts when it does not perform or when it's unavailable to the users. The monitoring also pinpoints which SQL statements needs tuning, which I can correct before the problems get serious.

DPA makes it possible for me to be proactive. I find the DPA-GUI to be very user-friendly and easy to understand even without reading the manual.
  • SQL-tuning advice. It's easy to locate the most inefficient SQL-staements as they are all graded. You just click and drill-down to see both the SQL-statements and statistics. That info will most likely give you enough knowledge to solve the issue, for example by adding an extra index.
  • The monitoring of the database by setting up your own alerts in all kind of categories. For example, alerts when tablespaces are running full or when disk/CPU load are too high or if the server becomes unavailable.
  • The possibilty to browse the repository and see trends. You can see exactly when problems are starting and see if the changes you make has an effect in the time to come.
  • The license-management seems difficult to use, and I always find that I need to contact SolarWinds when upgrading server, etc.
DPA pinpoints quite well which SQLs could need tuning, and it shows which impact the bad SQL had on the database and which impact the correction has afterwards. The repository collects more and more knowledge of your database as times goes by which enables you to see trends over time. You can very easy customize all kinds of alerts and get alerted (for example, by email) if something serious happens with your database.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The primary purpose that we use Database Performance Analyzer for is to monitor database instances. We also use it for Query performance analysis. We also use it for performance analysis. For our application, we monitor primarily the index advisory/recommendations.
  • We use this software to identify real-time performance problems such as errors, long-running queries or problems that are blocking the system.
  • We use this software to review previous SQL Server queries/performance.
  • When there is an issue with any Server and I need to quickly narrow down to the right place of the root cause, this is a tool that allows me to focus on the right places and remove all sorts of noise from our data.
  • Cannot easily find a query using a "text search" without detailed knowledge of the underlying SQL database "repository" that is used to display the data in each product.
  • On the ad-hoc plan tab, for any given plan we have to drill down each SQL manually one by one. It would be goOd to have some kind of summary popup/tool-tip when we hover over the plan in DPA.
Recognizes database issues continuously. You can see instantaneously if blocking was occurring at any specific time and what were the root blockers.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
DPA is primarily being used as a monitoring tool for our main production Oracle database. It helps to pinpoint problems or potential problems without effort. It replaces different Oracle monitoring tools and operating system resource monitoring tools (these tools are still used later in the troubleshooting process). It is also being used as an SQL tuning advisor.
  • Shows the database status in a single page.
  • Enables simple drilling into different database problem areas (CPU, ram, disks, sessions, etc.).
  • Regularly finds top queries that can be improved.
  • It would be nice if it could work with Oracle's SQL Tuning Advisor.
I first used this product as a demo version on a not well-optimized database. In two weeks of monitoring the database, SolarWinds DPA found several issues that we didn't notice before. It really helped us, as we would not have been able to find all that stuff in such a short time.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Beyond 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.
Suited to root cause analysis (but you also have to do your cross-analysis).
Brano Pajer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We 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
Well suited to real-time analysis in our use case. Ill-suited to proactive monitoring / alerts (or maybe we just don't know how to set these up).
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