Skip to main content
TrustRadius
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…

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

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

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 …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

26 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is SolarWinds SQL Sentry?

SolarWinds SQL Sentry is designed to help data professionals optimize SQL Server database performance in physical, virtual, and cloud environments. SQL Sentry delivers metrics to help users find and fix database performance problems and provides scalability, boasting demonstrated success monitoring…

What is dbForge Studio (Edge)?

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…

Return to navigation

Product Details

What is SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?

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

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

What makes DPA stand out:

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

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

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Features

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

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Screenshots

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

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Videos

Azure Database Support Overview

Watch Product Overview

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Technical Details

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

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

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

(1-4 of 4)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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.
  • It helps us monitor our server which is very useful.
We selected SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer to be able to monitor our database server.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Third-party Reviews
8
Database developers and architect
1
  • Query performance advice
  • long running query alerts
  • query blocking alerts
  • deadlock alerts
  • improve application performance
  • improve server availability
  • monitor data server performance and availability
We evaluated Redgate and Found solarwinds to be better
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
  • enabling secure website posed some issues. Installation was smooth
Very satisfied
  • no training
yes. Very easy
We can configure alerts for what we want to monitor, Example Failed agent jobs, deadlocks, service down, long running queries etc.
yes. I have configured deadlock monitoring, service down, long running queries, blocking queries, agent job failures, query tuning advice. They are very useful.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
Some - we have added small pieces of custom code
we have added custom code to monitor long running queries, blocking queries.
deadlock monitoring, service down, long running queries, blocking queries, agent job failures, query tuning advice
No
very good. Respond within a day
No
I was not able to enable secure website. The support helped me with that
  • monitoring memory usage
  • monitoring processor usage
  • query advice
  • certain reports are difficult to understand
very good
  • SQL server
We only monitor our SQL server database. pretty easy
  • network monitoring
  • Single Signon
Good tool. must have
support for the product to be included
vendor is pretty good, very responsive
Yes
yes, it went pretty smooth
  • new features like deadlock alerts,
  • new reports
  • deadlock alert
  • new usage reports
No
July 17, 2020

DPA Pros and Cons

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Very good at query help and resource information. Not so good at DAG HA designs. We have a DAG setup and SolarWinds DPA can not even see the local HA if this is setup. That is kind of a bummer since we need the HA information and DAG is an older tech.
  • Query Analyzer
  • HA Status
  • DAG HA Analyzer
  • Custom Time Windows for history
  • Provides good data to help us speed up queries.
4
We have a development team that uses this product for information and refinement of our applications. Also, the management likes to see the overview to make sure we are falling into the thresholds of what we use. The systems administrators use this to manage resources and all the servers needed to optimally use our products.
2
The development team and systems administration team supports the product. There are updates and settings that have to be managed. We also use the product for alerts and that system has had tweaks to maintain a level of information that is useful. The management and systems admins need different information relayed to them, so we use this system in different ways to suit the needs of the dept.
  • Alerting for Critical Guidelines
  • Information of resources and performance
  • Tracking changes and history
  • Information for AG and its setup
  • Viability of the servers that it maintains
  • Alert configurations to do many things outside the norm
  • We are waiting for new features for AG and its DAG resources
  • Manipulate the servers and procedures based on the recommendations of DPA
We have relied on this product for a very long time and it continues to exceed expectations.
The product is a vital part of our organization at this point, it would not be very ideal for us to abandon it. We use it almost every day and depend on its alerts for critical parts of our business.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is a powerful database performance analyzer tool that is vital to our business. It is utilized by the organization to monitor hundreds of SQL Server instances that support customer businesses. The graphs and dashboards provided by the tool grant us the quick visibility into potential performance culprits that could be impacting our customers.
  • Solarwinds DPA provides easy to ready graphs to identify database performance problems.
  • Solarwinds DPA displays vital Availability Group health information. This is used to quickly identify the status of SQL Server Availability Groups.
  • Solarwinds DPA provides a drill down capability to see current and recent activity that may be impacting performance. This easy to use interfaces is vital to quickly identifying performance problems for improved up time.
  • Solarwinds DPA does a great job of analyzing commonly executed queries on SQL instances. The one thing it does not do well is gathering metrics and bubbling up ad hoc queries that may only run once and a while, or perhaps queries that supply a variety of parameters. This typically causes DPA to interpret commonly run queries with varying parameters as different queries.
It is well suited for monitoring performance of mission critical business database systems. The tools website provides many easy to navigate pages with a plethora of details about SQL wait times, system resource utilization, such as CPU, memory, and disk, as well as supplying potential missing index information.
  • This tool drastically cuts down the time it takes to identify production impacting performance issues. This result improves the system up time to our customers, which in turn enables them to better serve their customers.
20
The DPA product covers more than a few hundred databases across 20+ application platforms. Monitoring this many different SQL Server instance is no easy task. Across the organization at least 20 users access this monitoring platform on a weekly basis. The business functions of these users are Support, DBAs, Developers, and Management.
2
The DBA's support the Solarwinds platform. There is very little effort and knowledge required to support the Solarwinds Database performance Analyzer platform. Installing the product, registering database instances, and upgrading the product are simple straightforward tasks.
  • Monitoring database wait times across the previous month to find regressed queries or schema changes that may effect performance.
  • Reviewing index recommendations.
  • Getting a quick glance look at resource utilization for things such as CPU utilization, page life expectancy, read and write latency, and blocking sessions.
The Solarwinds DPA product is an ideal tool for any DBA or support member. It gives easy to read charts and drill downs to identify performance problems or schema change benefits.
  • Navigating to the trends and resources tabs for a particular instance is easy to use and provides a great deal of information.
  • Solarwinds allows for support to quickly identify performance impacting queries/procs.
  • The GUI does take some time to learn as there is so much information and detail provided. But the learning curve is short and the tutorial videos provided do help speed up the learning time.
I have used the product for 3 years now and realize that at first it took me a month or two to identify all of the information that DPA has to offer. Since then I use the tool on a daily basis for troubleshooting, schema change performance validation, index tuning and recommendations, and reviewing the overall health and wait times of the SQL instances.
Johnny Garcia | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as a monitoring and troubleshooting tool as part of the Data team in out IT department. It helps us to identify real time performance issues as well as any unusual activity such as job failures, long running queries, blocking issues or failed SSRS subscriptions.
  • Being able to analyze a query performance over time is a great asset. It helps us to identify certain bottlenecks or issues that occur during certain points in time and compare it to a baseline that tells us if there is an issue.
  • The alerts that you are able to generate are also a huge help. they have a lot of great predefined alerts for general issues, but the ability to create your own alerts is a huge benefit.
  • DPA allows you to drill directly to poor performing queries that the tool has identified and allows you to see all the important metrics in one screen. Being able to see the number of executions, memory and CPU consumed along with blocking allows you to identify and correct poor performing queries much more efficiently and reduces research time.
  • It would be nice to have a separate dashboard that allows to see job performances over time (trends and summary)
  • It would be nice to have a separate dashboard that allows us to create traces on the fly based on findings from DPA
  • It would be nice to have a way capture parameter values passed to procs during a time period or that failed or returned an error.
DPA is great in identifying performance issues in real time and over time.
However, trying to troubleshoot specific issues with a certain execution due to bad data, is not possible. It captures execution plans but not the actual values being passed in so trying to identify the bad data is still a manual and time consuming process. If the tool could capture the passed-in values to a query execution that failed, that would make it tremendously helpful.
  • Increased customer service
  • Reduced time in identifying issues
  • Increased application efficiency
DPA was the best bang for the buck since we already had Orion monitoring. So being able to integrate was a huge factor.
4
DBA, Database Engineer and BI Developer
2
DBAs
  • Monitoring
  • Troubleshooting
  • Optimizing
  • We used it to identify a WebService that went wild and were able to contact our partner and correct the issue in minutes, rather than hours
  • I can't think of any additional ways other than monitoring, troubleshooting and optimizing queries
It allows us to have peace of mind that the servers are constatnly being monitored around the clock and that we can always go bcak in time and research if we missed something.
  • The top SQL waits
  • The drilldown into days and hours
  • The query execution analysis
  • The custom ranges for each of the metrics
  • The alert set up
  • licensing
For a seasoned DBA, the tool is very helpful and intuitive.
Return to navigation