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User-Friendly Interface: Users appreciate the SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for its straightforward and easy-to-understand …
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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? OracleOracle ExadataOracle EBSMicrosoft SQL Server Azure SQL DatabaseAzure SQL Database Managed InstanceMySQLDB2 SAP ASE AuroraMariaDBDPA monitors…
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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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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
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
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Videos
Azure Database Support Overview
Watch Product Overview
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Integrations
- SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor
- SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN)
- SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM)
- SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM)
- SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA)
- SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM)
- SolarWinds IP Address Manager (IPAM)
- SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager (VNQM)
- SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor (WPM)
- SolarWinds User Device Tracker
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Competitors
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, AWS Marketplace app |
| Mobile Application | No |
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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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!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
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.
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Reviews
(1-25 of 48)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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.
- 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).
March 28, 2022
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer - Recommended
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.
- 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.
March 24, 2022
SolarWinds DPA should be on every DBA's wishlist.
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 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.
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 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.
March 23, 2022
Awesome Tool for SQL Performance Tuning
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.
- 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
SolarWinds DPA saves the day every time
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.
- Analyzing query performance
- Index recommendation
- Wait time categorization and explanation
- Navigation is generally good, but some items can be confusing to find again
February 04, 2022
SolarWinds Database Performanc Analyzer - DPA Saves The Day!
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.
- 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!
January 19, 2022
Great Database Performance Analyzing and Monitoring Tool
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.)
- 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).
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.
December 18, 2020
Faster resolution in the blink of an eye
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.
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
December 14, 2020
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer solves problems that OEM can't even recognize are occurring
[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
December 14, 2020
Database Performance Analyzer - A Good Overall Monitoring and Trending Tool for Database Metrics
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
November 03, 2020
Solarwinds DPA - a DBA's MVP!
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)
July 17, 2020
Great for general monitoring
Solarwinds 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.
July 17, 2020
DPA Pros and Cons
We use this product to diagnose and maintain the good performance of SQL Servers. We find degradation or lag, and it also helps issues with queries to be addressed.
- Query Analyzer
- HA Status
- DAG HA Analyzer
- Custom Time Windows for history
July 14, 2020
DPA in Govenment
The database team uses DPA to manage up to 50 licenses. Only 5 team members who are DBAs actively use the tool. All SQL performance problems from large PeopleSoft DBS to Cots applications (500+) are covered. Performance problems can come from all directions so this tool is extremely useful because it's a catch-all.
- Peoplesoft DBs: we often use it to recommend indexes or find queries that need tuning.
- Availability group monitors and alerts so we know when there are problems.
- Trends over time: like blocking, deadlocks or stuck queries DPA helps pinpoint the cause.
- Bug with fantom availability group.
As an organization that relies on data and databases, it is important that we have the right tools in place to ensure our data is always accessible. The technology team has set up SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to monitor all of the critical databases on our network to ensure 100% uptime. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer allows our technology team to focus on other issues and only deal with the SQL servers when SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer alerts the team to any potential issue.
- Analyzes performance trends with all of the databases
- Analyzes memory, CPU, and disk space on the SQL servers and alerts on any potential issues
- Provides stats on wait times by database
- Offers tuning suggestions on how to improve the performance of under-performing databases and queries
- query and index suggestions are not straight forward. you need to understand sql in order to interpret and use the suggestions properly
- if you have a lot of databases, the price could inhibit the implementation
- not all reported issues have suggested fixes
March 29, 2020
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer as a whole
Database Performance Analyzer is really helpful in our organization to find DB issues. It does in-depth database performance monitoring and provides a lot of valuable data to us.
- Database Performance Analyzer module helped us capture database response times and other info.
- Database Performance Analyzer is really good at capturing in depth DB data that is not really possible from multiple other modules.
- Investigating everything is manual in SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.
- We will need to manually figure out what the issues are using SolarWinds.
February 07, 2020
SolarWinds DPA review
The SolarWinds DPA module is used mainly to monitor our MSSQL instances for performance. We had lots of issues related to DB performance and we were not sure about the root cause before implementing DPA. Now, we are getting proactive alerts when there is a deviation from the performance baseline configured in the tool and we are very happy with it.
- Easy to configure
- Real time data
- Notification email templates need improvement
- Needs a little training to go over/work with dashboards
December 04, 2019
Invaluable, Trusted Performance Diagnostics
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)
Discovering data performance issues. Creating an index based on the suggestions by DPA. It can be accessed by all developers to review their query or performance-related issues.
- Suggest indexes.
- Indicate the wait time for all processes, so you rank the issues and fix them by priority.
- You can send URL/ links to other to show them the exact point of problem. Easy for collaboration.
- Bookmark of problem, so we can revisit the issue and compare it before and after the changes.
- More details on deadlocks/blocking, etc.
- Notification, kind of monitoring, if wait time exceeds some threshold.. or review the wait time of specific bookmarks or issues.
September 26, 2019
Best Database Performance Tool
We use it to monitor and performance-tune some of our in-house developed applications. Some of these applications are tier-one applications.
- Track historical performance.
- Isolate the issue by providing a specific area of query impacting performance.
- Can track which user is causing the issue.
- Provides quick indexes where it makes sense.
- Auto tuning - It doesn't have the ability to implement the changes like Oracle Enterprise Manager.
- DPA free version is good but fully functional version should be allowed free for a limited number of instances to give users the ability to try functions without a need to make a purchase.
August 02, 2019
Small Teams use of DPA
DPA is being used by the IT and CIM Developers team to monitor our production databases. IT will check the system daily for any signs of issues. Both teams will check when testing or rolling out new systems to ensure the Software is operating as intended. These testing checks are done at least once a week by either department.
- Quickly identifies slow running queries.
- Identifies which database is causing issues on a server.
- Provides an easy to read way of seeing stats on all servers quickly.
- No way to mark a query activity as normal, for example a slow running SPROC that has to be that way.
- Not many options to restrict access.
July 23, 2019
SolarWinds DPA review
It is used as our central database monitoring tool across the whole organization, used especially to improve query performance, resolve blocks and to analyze trends.
- Deep queries analyses, provides good advice for performance improvements.
- Allows us to create our own custom alerts and reports.
- Has a very intuitive and well-explained interface. It is split up for different objectives to analyse or monitor as trends, tunning, current activities and resources.
- None identified
July 19, 2019
DPA: Great web application for wait stats and trends. Not the tool for those needing actionable alerts.
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.