SolarWinds DPA for DBAs!!! Working Smarter, Not Harder!
February 05, 2016

SolarWinds DPA for DBAs!!! Working Smarter, Not Harder!

Johnny Garcia | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for SQL Server

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.

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • 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.
  • 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.
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.

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer Feature Ratings

Using Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for SQL Server

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.

Using Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for SQL Server

For a seasoned DBA, the tool is very helpful and intuitive.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Lots to learn
  • 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

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