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SolarWinds DPA is an Excellent Performance Monitoring Tool for SQL Server
Updated April 07, 2021

SolarWinds DPA is an Excellent Performance Monitoring Tool for SQL Server

Mike Saedi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

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 definitely receive value from this product. Before DPA, I could not easily pinpoint why my SQL Server was slow at any given point in time.
  • The graphs and trending also help me visualize where problems are and fix and address them much more quickly.
Overall DPA is the best tool that I have used because of its simple interface and ability to dig in within a few clicks to see the root of a performance issue, but Idera and SQL Sentry have some areas where they are better than DPA, such as blocking and deadlocks.
I also feel the Idera tool has a slight edge over DPA when it comes to recommendations for improvements.
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.

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Support

Evaluating SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer and Competitors

I researched many SQL tools and have always come back to DPA because of the easy to use graphical interface and easy to drill down features