DPA -- The Wait stats king
June 20, 2019
DPA -- The Wait stats king
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
DPA is a great tool if you are looking for a performance monitoring solution for your database servers. It's intuitive to use, and it can be used to pinpoint the root cause of a performance issue -- both during and after the event. It can highlight the specific statement within a stored procedure that is causing a performance issue, and capture the query plan to allow detailed analysis of the issue. It captures various useful performance counters, and you can add your own custom metrics, but it's the wait analysis where this tool really shines.
- The best tool for wait analysis.
- A simple, intuitive web interface.
- A quality product that is improving over time.
- The wait analysis at the statement level has it's pros/cons. I would like to see higher level stored procedure.
- It's a good performance monitoring tool, but not good for monitoring health -- backups, log shipping etc.
- The query plan viewer in the web is only good for simple query plans. It's easy to download the plan to view in SSMS, Plan Explorer, etc. though.
- We've used DPA many times to pinpoint the root cause of a performance issue.
- We've used DPA for proactive performance tuning, as well as reacting to more immediate problems.
- We've used DPA to work out what happened after the fact -- enabling me to identify and fix the root cause.
- SQL Sentry and Spotlight
I like the web-based interface and wait stats analysis of DPA. Some of the other tools have more features, but DPA feels like a more polished tool, and the features it has work well. It's been a while since I've looked at the competitors' products. DPA works well for us, and the product continues to improve with new releases.