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Got a problem with your database performance, and the DBA blames the network, install DPA!
What do you like best about the product?
The ability to drill down on queries and to download reports with graphs for management.
What do you dislike about the product?
It is still difficult to explain to management that it is NOT the network. The graphs have helped substantially; I wish that there were a "view for dummies" !!
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I have proved that it is NOT the network. We now have regular quarterly database maintenance windows!
Recommendations to others considering the product:
This product really helps you find out what is going on inside the database, it is very granular and has assisted our operation tremendously in cutting down wait times.
DPA - Precise Performance Measurement
What do you like best about the product?
It's very simple to deploy and starts collecting data as soon as we link it to a database. I like that we can drill down to one second interval. Plus it retains the data for 5 years. One of the greatest advantage is that it as minimal impact on the monitored SQL server.
There is the resource adviser which gives us an idea of where the issue probably is and where to start the investigation.
We use this in addition to SolarWinds Orion SAM - which as AppInsight for SQL template. This gives us additional metrics we can look for to see if it's more of a server issue (memory, CPU, storage, etc).
During the first usage we were immediately able to see the high wait times and that it was attributed to the NETWORK_IO. This is something we can investigate and is in our control.
There is the resource adviser which gives us an idea of where the issue probably is and where to start the investigation.
We use this in addition to SolarWinds Orion SAM - which as AppInsight for SQL template. This gives us additional metrics we can look for to see if it's more of a server issue (memory, CPU, storage, etc).
During the first usage we were immediately able to see the high wait times and that it was attributed to the NETWORK_IO. This is something we can investigate and is in our control.
What do you dislike about the product?
Would be nice to customize the views, similar to Orion. So different users have a customized view. The user administration is pretty basic and isn't built for multi tenancy. But this tool is primarily for the DBAs and I have not seen anyone else use it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Excessive wait times and what's causing it. There are things which can't control, such as badly written queries; however there are things within our control like server memory, CPU allocation, IO bandwidth, storage latency, etc. These are the factors we can concentrate on to improve the overall response time of the database and reduce waits as much as possible.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
DPA is very detailed in it's analysis - it's really meant for DBAs. I have seen some system admin use it - but not that effectively.
Easy install opens deep doors into your db performance
What do you like best about the product?
DPA is very easy to install and takes little time. The demo was up and running within an hour after spinning up the host VM. This gave our DBA team a change to try it out before we made a purchase. Other tools are a full project to get running and leave agents and tracks all over the environment. DPA does not, if you uninstall there is nothing left behind excect the account used to monitor the databases. These accounts can be quickly deleted and there is no trace of DPA left behind. This is important for beta testing. We were able to test in our Prod env and got a real look at what we were buying. The ease of use makes everyone in the NOC a value adding DB performance monitoring guru. SW products are mostly very user friendly, DPA also fits this description. The data provided is top shelf from engineer, to dev, to IT executive. Built in reports give you great data from day 1 and a little customizing makes you look like a DB Performance Monitoring Master. Low cost solution that gives you a ton of value.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing to note as of yet. Since DPA is a newer product from SW I am not sure how support will be if we ever do need to engage. I have to assume it will be similar to the other products in the suite..
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Viewing db. issues/health is a breeze now. As a lifetime IT Ops person we tend to learn that app slowness is always the network first, then firewall, then IIS/web server, and possibly the app but never the database. DPA rules out the guessing with a few clicks. Prove its the DB or not the DB instantly. Historical trending is spot on. ROI is outstanding as we have been empowered to better allocate IT funds where needed. DBA team has embraced the tool and made our deployment a huge success. In the end DPA has been a significant win for our IT teams as well as business partners. And its cheap (when compared to other similar products). Also great integration to the Solar Winds platform if you are already there. DPA has been the easiest monitoring tool deployment in my 20 plus year career.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Do the demo and see what you think. Install is very quick and simple so its an hour of your time and then turn the DBA team lose. The cost is much lower than most other tools on the market so ROI is not a factor. Install is easy to remove if you don't like the product after the beta and no agents or other tracks left after removal.
Best product for Database and SQL query performance monitoring
What do you like best about the product?
It does Database and SQL query tuning.
Can identify database problems in short time.
Has wide range of database engines to choose from and that too in single installation.
Can identify database problems in short time.
Has wide range of database engines to choose from and that too in single installation.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing much as much.
It solves my issue of supporting wide range of database engines on one platorm.
It solves my issue of supporting wide range of database engines on one platorm.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Monitors Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL.
Has quick response-time analysis to problems.
Can integrated with server and application monitoring(SAM).
Has quick response-time analysis to problems.
Can integrated with server and application monitoring(SAM).
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Best in class for Database and SQL query performance monitoring and tuning.
A very useful database monitoring tool which eases troubleshooting very much
What do you like best about the product?
The best thing about DPA is it identifies the performance issue with in seconds and by focusing on wait stats identifying the root cause is very easy. We can see instantaneously if blocking was occurring at any specific time and what were the root blockers. The good thing is it gets down to minutes and even seconds of time in terms of granularity. It also allows to set up various custom alerts which is very beneficial
What do you dislike about the product?
The thing I found to be wanting in solarwinds DPA is the graphs for various metrics can capture time - value pair of only one metric. I can't capture multiple instances of a metric (for example - multiple replication distribution agents latency values ) from with in DPA
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We mainly use DPA for performance monitoring and optimization of our SQL databases. It allows benefits like blocking identification, capturing resource bottlenecks like CPU, memory etc and we set up numerous customized alerts in solarwinds DPA.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
The tool is recommended because its very easy to use and rich in feature set
Solarwinds Database Performace Analyzer
What do you like best about the product?
I like the interface. The Status Summary provides the information that is most important at a glance.
What do you dislike about the product?
When drilling down into an issue you can sometimes get lost in the navigation.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We have been able to identify issues with long running queries and implement fixes.
Hard to correlate single user impact
What do you like best about the product?
Resource correlation with database queries. time slice
What do you dislike about the product?
VM license portion of DPA is ridiculous . We own VMAN and we need to license connectors to that same data twice so DPA can analyze its own version of the same data?
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
ETL query efficency
Excellent product to give you real information about your database
What do you like best about the product?
The level of granularity that can be reached with the information captured by this tool. I'm also a huge fan of the explanations that are given with each of the individual items that are displayed.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes it can feel clunky in the relation that the node has to the database. I feel like looking at the node should flow more easily into DPA as opposed to being so separated.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As a none DBA, I have been empowered to research and determine issues or recommendations to make to our database admins that carry significant weight and understanding of the tool and how it informs us of the database.
Casual SQL user
What do you like best about the product?
I like that I can very easy to identify performance issues and find the most of the time find the root cause in a single pane of glass. This is really helpful for example when users are complaining of slowness issues on a business critical application and this tool can potentially provide the answer in a short of amount of time if the issue lies on at the database level. There are many positives to the product, but being able to pinpoint an issue is huge.
What do you dislike about the product?
It would be nice to be able to create traces on the fly based on findings from DPA. It would also help be nice if the product were more customizable. More intuitive reporting would be nice, but I've found that Solarwinds reporting in general is sort of difficult and is not limited to just the Database Performance Analyzer module.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We are able to find root cause for critical application issues and to keep an eye on performance to proactively attack and/or prevent potential issues.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
I think this is a great tool to monitor databases and to identify issues that could potentially affect critical business applications. Anyone who is looking for a product that provides a high level of functionality in a single pane of glass would definitely benefit from Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer. I am sysadmin and a very casual SQL user and this product is very easy to follow and understand even though I am not proficient in database administration.
This is going to completely change the way my developers attack problem code.
What do you like best about the product?
I love that you get detail on specific queries. I can now have my developers focus on very detailed issues, and can pinpoint where issues are occurring.
What do you dislike about the product?
There's nothing that I dislike so far.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We're going to start attacking poorly performing queries. This tool has shown us incredible amounts of data that we didn't have the bandwidth to dig for in the past. My team can focus on a few things and start knocking additional things off the list as we fix them.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
This is especially helpful for small teams. I have one DBA and 5 developers supporting 15k employees, so finding the time to do DB work is never easy. This narrows down the scope of finding problems tremendously.
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