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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
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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
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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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(1-16 of 16)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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 22, 2022
DPA: FTW.
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.
- 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).
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.
April 19, 2020
Keep an eye on your databases using Solarwinds DPA
A database should be more optimized to run faster and efficiently. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is one of the best applications which is used as a management and performance monitoring solution for any database. This software is straightforward to use and configure. And it is user-friendly. In our organization, we are using SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to manage database performance issues such as errors, long-running queries and more.
- The interface of the SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is straightforward. And it is easy to understand also.
- SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helps to immediately identify the performance problems of SQL Databases such as errors, long-running queries or issues that are blocking the system.
- It provides real-time analysis and support. Also, it can review issues from a historical point of view.
- Many databases are supported.
- The cost of acquiring this software is bit expensive. But it's absolutely worth.
- It takes considerable time to load.
- The reporting feature should be improved.
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)
June 28, 2019
Happy customers, much time saved
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!
June 03, 2019
Useful database monitoring tool
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.
May 15, 2019
DPA is a helpful monitoring and analytical tool
We 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.
The DPA product has and continually assists in finding performance issues in stored procedures and queries that are occurring against the database. We recently had a significant issue with performance and being able to go back minute-by-minute is fantastic and allowed us to diagnose the issue much faster.
- Simple and intuitive to navigate.
- Provides Top queries and makes good recommendations that are accurate.
- Good reporting use for C-Level colleagues who don't understand the techincal side of Databases.
- Having a search bar to search for particular SQL code would be useful, Especically when attempting to find a new SQL Hash name on a fixed stored proc
May 02, 2019
SolarWinds - we understand the network better
We use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer with the Orion. The team that uses it are the Development department. We monitor 5 of our SQL servers and check problems in the Database. We check the time that takes between req and response and see the impact on the DataBase and on the performance. Configuring daily and monthly reports.
- Monitor performance
- Check for errors
- Give a clear view of the DB
- Simple GUI
- No Support for SAP HANA
- Allow alerts to SMS
- Search feature
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
March 22, 2019
I am ineffective without DPA
It 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.
February 26, 2019
Great DB monitoring tool for performance improvements
DPA is being used by certain departments in the organization. For performance testing team, it helps to investigate and triage the performance issues that we see in an application. DPA's ability to put a very little overhead (<1%) helps to reduce the performance latency compared to other tools. Also, one of the great features of DPA which helps us is its comparability for on-prem as well as cloud-based monitoring.
- Low overhead on monitored instances.
- Ability to monitor both on-prem as well as cloud instances.
- Setup tutorials could have been more simplified like how to set-up alerts and so.
- DPA should have a feature where I can text search. That's just not good :(
Database Performance Analyzer is used across our organization for performance analysis and alert notification. It provides a very useful supplement to Oracle Enterprise Edition Diagnostics and Tuning Packs. The DBAs use it predominantly for both reactive and proactive performance tuning. The custom alert function is used to notify DBAs of potential issues which require investigation. We use the Reports feature on occasion for presentations and data-sharing with management.
- Excellent overall view of database performance from the standpoint of SQL wait times. The main page for each database clearly displays the "pain points," if any.
- Ability to "drill down" to analyze particular problems in detail.
- Annotations provide a clear marker of changes so that any effect may be clearly seen.
- No PostgreSQL support.
- No ability to see a historical listing of annotations. Once annotations roll off the 30-day window, they are no longer accessible.
- There is no "timezone awareness" for global monitoring. All times are local to the area where DPA is run; this can throw off remote staff. We have sometimes created annotations at the incorrect time.
- In certain cases, the GUI gets cumbersome. This is especially true in the new (version 12) screen which shows SQL details.
- The screen presentation often doesn't lend itself to copy-paste for data to go into an email, documentation, etc.
- No facility for tracking unused or seldom used indexes.
- No integration with Oracle's Diagnostic and Tuning Pack features.
January 25, 2019
Just my view on Solarwinds DPA. Not worth it to me.
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is currently used by the IT Department to monitor select SQL Server instances. It is used to help find and fix issues that affect those instances. Things like high memory, CPU, and blocking transactions are the most frequent use cases. I also use it to help find issues with query performance from in-house ETL, reporting, and ad hoc queries.
- It can tell you the amount of wait time on the SQL instance.
- It can help you find poor performing queries (by wait time) and give suggestions on the fix.
- It has a decent overview/dashboard page that can alert you to issues across all covered instances.
- It focuses on tracking/reporting the wait time statistic as the core measurement for performance. I think to most DBAs and SQL Developers, wait time is a symptom of an issue, not the root cause. I would prefer this premise be changed to track different issues that get closer to the heart of the issue.
- "Solutions" to wait time issues that the system suggests is simply canned responses by each wait type. This is incredibly unhelpful when tracking specific issues; for instance, a single query that is not performing well.
- Navigating the UI is incredibly frustrating. Trying to click a wait bar and navigating to a SQL query by its hash is rather obnoxious as well. Hovering over every hash to find the query you might be looking for is just a pain.
- Combining multiple search patterns is nearly impossible by any known means. For instance, I want to know information about queries on a database, by user, not by wait type. I have a page for queries against a database and I have a page for queries ran by a specific user. But I need ways to combine these quickly to find things.
- Completely absent features like tracking SQL Agent jobs and maintenance plans would be a huge help.
- An easier way to get to and use the "Current->Active Sessions." Currently running (or blocked) transactions are some of the most helpful tools I can have when determining issues. Focusing more on this feature would be a big plus.
- Reports are halfway useless. It seems like they only give me the options to show what I can view in the UI already, instead of extending functionality. If I need to write every report I want with a SQL Query, then what did I need to buy this tool for in the first place?
- More high-level information on the dashboard could take up some unused space. Things like: data file size, log size, agent jobs running/failed, etc could all be beneficial to show at a high level instead of a bunch of arbitrary green check marks.
- One of the other big issues I have is when a blocking transaction goes unnoticed for a while. It takes up so much of the 'wait time' graphs that other bars are basically flat. I know there is a way to make it so that query is ignored in the wait bar graphs, but finding that option is a problem. And, I don't really want to ignore it all the time. I want to ignore the single huge chunk that was being blocked a week ago so I can continue monitoring for issues with it. The other thing is that when a blocking transaction occurs, a bunch of other queries rack up massive wait time too, which just compounds the problem.
January 25, 2019
DPA - an esy to use and invaluable tool for a DBA or a software engineer professional.
We are actively monitoring our production and staging environment for any potential negative impact of new deployments or a performance impact due to a dramatic data growth.
- No agent required on a server, which allows us to easily switch a monitoring target.
- Integration with a VM Hosting software, so a correct decision could be made on sudden resource utilization spikes.
- Capturing a live execution plan for further analysis.
- Historical monitoring data is available for an extended time period.
- Increase a query name file size, so the names could be more meaningful and allow for distinguishing different versions of the same query easier.
- Would be nice to see captured parameters for a query, when the usual execution plan was changed.
- On the statistical/historical site: highlight rarely used indexes.