SolarWinds DPA should be on every DBA's wishlist.
Updated March 24, 2022

SolarWinds DPA should be on every DBA's wishlist.

Darryl Hawes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

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 have been able to leverage the data provided by DPA to convince our software provider to make some changes to help resolve costly deadlocks.
There are some overlaps, but DPA has a lot more historical information that allows us to analyze statements over time rather than just see what is going on at that moment.
The more heavily a database is used, the more useful DPA is. A lightly used database will not get a lot of benefit. The business use of the database will also correlate to DPA's usefulness. In cases where performance can make or break a company, DPA can allow for a huge impact, if done right.

Using SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

  • Overall database performance
  • Deadlock monitoring
  • User experience
  • Cut deadlocks by more than half
  • Using real-time data to produce monitoring graphs
  • Notify IT when software licenses are nearly exhausted
  • Further reduce deadlocks by rewriting poorly written stored procedures
  • Identify users using poorly written queries in Excel, Crystal, etc.