# SolarWinds Database Observability Reviews **Vendor:** SolarWinds Worldwide LLC **Category:** [Database Monitoring Tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/database-monitoring) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 224 ## About SolarWinds Database Observability Database Observability is a type of monitoring solution designed to help users maintain optimal performance of their databases by providing insights into their operational health. This solution is tailored for database teams who require a robust tool to monitor, diagnose, and optimize their database systems, ensuring they function efficiently across various environments, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Targeted primarily at database administrators, DevOps teams, and IT professionals, Database Observability addresses the critical need for real-time insights into database performance. Its capabilities are essential for organizations that rely heavily on data-driven decision-making and require their databases to operate without interruption. With the increasing complexity of database environments, including hybrid setups that combine on-premises and cloud resources, the need for a comprehensive observability solution has never been more pressing. The key features of Database Observability include the ability to monitor key performance metrics, which allows users to track the health of their databases continuously. By detecting early warning signs of potential issues, teams can proactively address problems before they escalate into more significant disruptions. This feature is crucial for maintaining service availability and ensuring that end-users experience minimal downtime. In addition to monitoring, the solution offers diagnostic capabilities that enable users to rapidly identify and resolve performance challenges, such as slow queries and resource bottlenecks. This functionality is vital for maintaining optimal performance levels and ensuring that databases can handle increasing workloads efficiently. Furthermore, the optimization features allow users to fine-tune their database performance through query optimization, effective indexing strategies, and better resource utilization, ultimately leading to greater scalability. One of the standout aspects of Database Observability is its ability to provide a unified view of databases across various environments. This cross-environment visibility ensures that database teams can manage their systems effectively, regardless of where they are hosted. By consolidating insights into a single platform, users can streamline their monitoring processes and enhance their overall operational efficiency, making Database Observability a critical tool for modern database management. ## SolarWinds Database Observability Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **real-time visibility** provided by SolarWinds Database Observability, enabling swift identification of database performance issues. (12 reviews) - Users value the **real-time monitoring** of SolarWinds Database Observability, enabling immediate visibility into database performance issues. (12 reviews) - Users love the **ease of use** of SolarWinds Database Observability, enabling efficient troubleshooting and integration across platforms. (11 reviews) - Users appreciate the **clear visibility into database performance** , enabling rapid identification of issues and proactive management. (9 reviews) - Users value the **stellar visibility** of SolarWinds Database Observability, providing deep insights into database performance and issues. (9 reviews) - Users value the **real-time performance monitoring** of SolarWinds Database Observability, enabling efficient database operations and insightful analysis. (8 reviews) - Accuracy (7 reviews) - Integrations (7 reviews) - Performance Optimization (7 reviews) - Platform Compatibility (7 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **learning curve steep** , with complex setup and overwhelming data presentation for newcomers to database monitoring. (6 reviews) - Users find the **steep learning curve** challenging, as initial setup and feature understanding require significant time investment. (6 reviews) - Users find the **initial setup and fine-tuning complex** , particularly for those new to database monitoring tools. (5 reviews) - Users find the **difficult setup** process challenging, particularly for those unfamiliar with database monitoring tools. (5 reviews) - Users find the **expensive pricing** problematic, especially for smaller teams or organizations with limited budgets. (5 reviews) - Overwhelming Features (5 reviews) - Complex Pricing (4 reviews) - Limited Customization (4 reviews) - Noisy Alerts (4 reviews) - Poor UI (4 reviews) ## SolarWinds Database Observability Reviews ### 1. Keep on top of your databases with ease. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** M R. | Deacon, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DPA is a great tool for any database administrator. It helps you have a simple oversight of all your databases and highlights possible problems or performances issues, that could be affecting the end user. It highlights problems with historical statistics and helps you keep on top of maintenance and troubleshooting, these are just some of things we love. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** It doesn't feel like an independent module and requires SAM to get full use out of it. The cost of licensing could be cheaper, especially when you need other modules to really utilise it fully. Acquiring the licensing and other modules in one hit can be expensive. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** If you're tired of running queries or being in the dark when it comes to your database problems then DPA is a great tool. It will save you time and help you spot problems much quicker than manual troubleshooting. It's worth checking out the trial and seeing it in action for yourself. It doesn't take too long to set up. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It highlights speed issues and has drawn our attention to bottlenecks almost instantly, without the need of too much work. It can highlight issues quickly and prevent downtime and complaints, by giving us the ability to react to problems quicker. It saves us so much time and is well worth it. ### 2. Making DB management so much easier! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark W. | Media Director, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 17, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DBA by solarwinds is another excellent module for DB management and monitoring. If you have felt like you're blind to DB performance issues, DB problems or anything else then this product will change the way you work. It will help you find problems much faster and even prevent potential downtime, by bring things to your attention before they cause problems. The varied views help you have a quick oversight of all your DB without going in and out of various windows. The historical information is another by win for DBA, allowing to monitor query performance etc. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DBA lacks search capability at the moment and this would be something that would improve it, if it was implemented. It would also be nice if it was closer integrated with the rest of the solarwinds platforms, as it feels like a separate product entirely at times, though this isn't that big a deal. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** If you feel like you're always blind to DB problems and are not sure where to start then DBA could be the way to go. Check out a trial first to see it in action and i'm sure you'll start to see what it has to offer and how it can improve your day to day workload. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's hugely increased workflow and productivity and prevented definite downtime on more than one occasion. It's also helped us keep our DB more streamlined to prevent slow down for end users. ### 3. Excellent Product **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matt R. | Matt Rees, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 02, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** It gives you an overall insight to all databases with alerts and a real understanding what's happening. If you are constantly battling clueless issues or lack of alerts and information then this is a real game changer. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Load capacity is sometimes slow even though hardware requirements are met. (not a huge issues though) **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** It removes a lot of stress from day to day work. Administratively its excellent to be able to find issues or errors before it causes something more serious. Additionally there is no need to be constantly checking things as the alerting and reporting helps show trends to prevent future problems. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** A lot of time is saved every day and even maintenance time has been reduced. Alert options and customisation really helps narrow down what problems you want to me notified of etc. Down time is often minimised or even completely eradicated. ### 4. Best solution to Monitor Critical Databases **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rosalin F. | IT ANALYST, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 05, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** With Solarwinds DPA we can find root cause during a database downtime. Error detection is a great feature that is run by machine learning and the intuitive dashboard helps a novice tech understand the errors and initiate a fix. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I have been using Solarwinds Database performance analyzer for the past 3 years and it has been just great. No complaints. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I highly recommend Solarwinds DPA to all major corporations with thousands of databases. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** SolarWinds is great because the load on each monitoring device is very low and there is no stress that we need to upgrade hardware devices. ### 5. A greater insight into database performance. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Relations | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 17, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DPA offers a great overall view of your live databases and can immediately draw your attention to potential problems. It saves you a lot of time in the way it can troubleshoot a lot of problems for you or bring to your attention problems that could lead to downtime etc. It’s easy to set up and gives you peace of mind, especially when managing multiple databases. It has helped us solve ongoing problems by relaying historical information and bringing certain trends to our attention. Highly recommended. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** As good as DPA is, it can get quite costly especially if there is a need for growth. Some reporting and the in built search could be better. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** If cost isn’t too much of a worry and you’re looking for insight into your database health then consider DPA. You can download a full trial of the product that can help you see what the product can do for you. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is a massive time saver and helps us rectify problems quicker, resulting in less downtime and helps us be more productive. It also helps remove potential problems before they turn into one. ### 6. I have confidence in the databases since the implementation of Solarwinds, you are my working life. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carolina M. | Systems Engineer and IT Process Analyst , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 17, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The ease of administration of our database and the tools to create alerts. I feel very satisfied with the functions of executing precise Solarwinds dice processes. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** At this moment I cannot think of negative things, it is what I think. If any failure occurs with this product, I will notify you immediately. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I have no doubt, it is the best thing that has happened to me in my working life, I recommend it totally and 100%. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Problems creating alerts and executions of accurate data processes. ### 7. The alerts make response good. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ernest M. | Product manager, International Trade and Development, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 05, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Perfect and alerts are incredible. Very nice with data visualization. I just love how its easy to log in to the system. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Good product and most convenient with logging. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Monitoring is very good and love it. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Logging into the system is so much good and admire it. Data visualization makes it more comfortable and very confidant with use. ### 8. Super Performance Monitoring of Databases. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jignesh R. | Software Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** One great thing that Solarwinds did was to make the User Interface very simple and quick. In many other Monitoring tools, the transaction time is long and it doesn't give us real-time information. With Solarwinds Database performance Analyzer the information is real-time and we can inform the Database admins to take action as soon as the alert comes in. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I have been using Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for about 4 years now and I simply love it. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Huge Corporation will benefit by implementing Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer, it will help monitor thousands of Databases with ease. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** The Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer can be used to monitor Databases even if it on a cross-platform environment. ### 9. The quality of support I get is brilliantly to **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yash K. | Frontend Web Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Brilliant and most effective with use. Great and the reports are impressive.. I just love how makes data visualization so simple **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Good and very nice with data visualization **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Yes it's very good with data visualization. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** More effective with alerts. Helps so much with reporting. Good user interface. ### 10. Super DB Analyzer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James C. | IT Service Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The simple user interface is easy to monitor the Database Performance and to take action when required. There were no bugs during the setup of SloarWinds Database Performance Analyzer. The ability to find the root cause of a problem is easy using the SloarWinds Database Performance Analyzer. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** After using it for many years, I can't seem to find a reason to dislike SloarWinds Database Performance Analyzer. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I highly recommend it. It make the monitoring team's lives easier. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Very efficient and Solarwinds has many other applications that can be merged with the DB Performance Analyzer to make it a combo power tool. ### 11. Great Product to keep your Databases in check **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Ease of use and great dashboard for display of performance charts. This was easy to setup and get running. Lots of useful information on the solar winds Thwack users form. Graphical chats and UI work well and make it easy for us to spot an issue. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The price is a little high but the it does have a lot of features for the price ! **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Ensure it meets all requirements> it is easy to setup and integrate into an existing solar winds environment. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We looked at this tool to prevent outages caused by poor database performance. We can proactively monitor everything to ensure the sites are up, functional and running efficiently. ### 12. The best DB Performance Analyzer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ganesh R. | Software Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 07, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** With the Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer, we can detect bottlenecks and try to fix any complex Database related issues. A great feature is that we can optimize any database anywhere. With the Visual Dashboards, the root cause can be detected easily. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I don't see anything wrong with Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer. It does what is designed to do. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer is really a must-have for an organization which has multiple application servers **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer can be easily scaled to monitor 1000s of Databases at the same time across any platform ### 13. Efficient **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 08, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** SQL query tuning. Great. Simple interface, easy to use and review performance. Query performance allows historical details which is a great feature. It's able to identify performance issues quickly. Easy to upgrade and administer and have had few issues with implementation. No bugs to report. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Expensive product; although, it does have a lot of great features. Best for larger companies with bigger budgets and needs. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** A cost-benefit analysis is key. Database Performance Analyzer has several features that lead to greater efficiency and better cross-team collaboration, however the upfront costs of implementation may not be worth it for smaller companies. It's a great product worth a trial period at the very least. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We sought this product out for monitoring database in hybrid environments, and it has worked well so far. It speeds up resolution time but has not yet paid for itself, so the benefits haven't yet outweighed the costs. Time will tell, but I'm hopeful. ### 14. Database monitoring that works **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Josh O. | Senior Database Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 21, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** All the details and metrics it collects and provides. The reporting is very helpful and the ability to zoom in collectively on multiple metrics is very beneficial. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Seems to be an ongoing issue with maintenance windows. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides much more than basic monitoring and alerting. It gets very collective in nature as far as monitoring VLFs for log files and untrusted Foreign Keys or Check constraints. Some things you wouldn't even have thought to look for. ### 15. Product Not Fit For Purpose on OLTP SQL **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stephen J. | Senior Database Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Intuitive/easy to use. Easy to administrate once it has been set up. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The tool captures execution time by using the plan hash – which works fine for read queries, but for transactional DML, it's likely that most of the time it is the COMMIT TRAN that takes the bulk of the wait time (WRITELOG wait) – as there is no plan for a COMMIT, DPA doesn’t capture the stats for it, so it can’t be used to determine if an increase in wait time is the result of higher executions, or something else. Given that execution times and execution counts for the stored procs (containing the ‘COMMIT TRAN’ statements to which I refer above) are available in the DMV, I asked Solarwinds if they were planning to address this and their response was that “there is nothing to fix”/”speak to Microsoft”. We are looking to drop them as a vendor. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** For read transactions, it's a great tool, for OLTP traffic, of little use. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Identify problematic/poorly performing SQL. ### 16. Best Remote Database Performance Analyzer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mario K. | Softwareingenieur, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** My favorite thing about Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer is the simple interface. We use the data base performance analyser from Solarwind to monitor all of our environments for performance problems affecting our SQL databases. This software helps us to identify real-time performance problems such as errors, long-running queries or problems that are blocking the system. There's no better tool to analyze server statistics. I like the detection and reporting of deadlock. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** There are not a lot of thinks I dislike about Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer, but one of them is that it has problems when you switch across domains. I would also prefer to have different dashboards for job performances, task creation and parameter tuning. I also heared that it is way to expenive for small companies. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I can recommend Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer for anybody who can afford it. I takes some time to learn but once you have it set up it will show you a lot of real time data and protection errors/ bottlenecks. Also read through the documentation before asking for help as the support is very expensive as I was told by my colleges. The documention is often good enough to solve the problem. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer is an excellent tool when you have questions about database problems. It is excellent in identifying performance problems in real time. It prevents downtime or even future downtime by detecting possible problems prior to occurrence. ### 17. Great Visibility of each Database Performance **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andreas K. | Software Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 07, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** If we want our application to perform better then all our Databases need to be performing at 100%. With Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer, each team member can get a view of how these Databases is performing. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** There is nothing to dislike. This is a great product **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I highly recommend Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer to all organizations and it would become easier to attack the performance-related issue. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer can analyze Databases across Operating Systems and even Virtual Environments. ### 18. Best Analyzer for Database **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Umita R. | Backend Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 15, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DPA helps in identifying the root cause of the issue with the help of walt-time analysis. It's User Interface is very nice and intuitive and is very easy to navigate through. It also helps in pointing out what is slowing down our Servers. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** We really like DPA and would really recommend it to others, However DPA should have added more alerting capabilities. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it to monitor database health, it helps in real time monitoring database performance, CPU time, Query time. ### 19. The Best Database Performance Analyzer **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sameh L. | Data Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a great software. I like the ability to see current activities from multiple aspect, the quick solve for issues for my company severs. I love how the software narrow down to the right place of root cause. Tagging and Annotation is another great, and the ability to see past details is very helpful while working on Query performance. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** There are some problems with the software, one of the issues is that I can’t search the specific text on any of the sub screen when drill down to session, SQL, machine. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Solarwinds software is the best database performance analyzer I have ever seen and I definitely recommend it over all competing software. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It’s one of the best tools if you need a database performance analyzer, we use it now in my workplace. It’s perfect for finding, analyzing, solving any type of SQL Database issues.it speeds up the process that increases the overall cycle time for resolving any Database issue. ### 20. DPA: Good Tool for Historical Reviews (SQL Server) **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John R. | Senior Systems Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 23, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** • Ability to review previous SQL Server queries/performance. • Review poor-performing queries over time to know areas to focus on. • Find out what was going on when we get call(s) from users about slow performing queries (or underlying reports). • Ability to review blocking issues from a historical point of view. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** • Inability to review SQL Server from a "resources" point of view and drill down into specific queries details. • Inability to "group" queries together when the "filters" (i.e., where clauses) change but the overall query is the same. • Cannot easily find a query using a "text search" without detailed knowledge of the underlying SQL database "repository" that is used to display the data in product. • The tool, but itself, is *very* light on the resources side (CPU/memory/disk) compared to other vendors. You will need to purchase additional SolarWinds tools ($$). **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** There are many good tools on the market. We chose Solarwinds DPA (formerly Confio Ignite) due to the ease we could connect our SQL Server "repository" (internal network) to "cloud based" SQL servers without having to poke a lot of holes (open ports) in our internal network. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ability to respond to poor server performance, mostly from calls from users who are having performance issues. We have been able to capture the poor performing SQL, review it and make various tuning adjustments (improve the overall query, indexes, etc.). Most of the time, you do not get a call about performance when it is happening... you get calls/emails after the fact... which is one of the reasons for a good SQL performance monitoring tool. ### 21. Very Detailed **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 21, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The customer support for SentryOne is the absolute best. They respond immediately and will work through any issues. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** We have had issues using the maintenance windows groups (resolved). It is sometimes hard to find customized alerts as there are so many layers. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** I would recommend SentryOne for large enterprise companies. The reporting piece is well developed. And most of all their support team is extremely helpful. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using SentryOne to monitor over 100 SQL instances. The query plan explorer is a great tool as well. ### 22. Solarwinds for IT Management **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** kaka t. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 26, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Master database and SQL query tuning counselors . Recognize database issues continuously . Cross-vendor database bolster from a solitary interface . Integration with the Orion Platform . These are the best things when using Solarwinds and which also helps in improve the performance . **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The Solarwinds solutions starts at $1995 which is quite costly as compared to Nagios XI which is cheaper and also has great web accessible interface . **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** It provides quick, easy, and low-effort installation/configuration and administration as compare to other competitor like Nagios XI **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We mostly use it to find solution for complex problems because when teams collaborate , they needs to solve problem faster and efficiently . Also we can monitor database in hybrid environments which is quite helpful . ### 23. it is easy to use and the detail of monitoring with solarwinds orion platform or products. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 19, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** once you are going to use DPA the tuning future is very helpful in showing areas that must be improved. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** It can be a complicated if you are not using solarwinds database performance. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** it is best for database and SQL query performance monitoring and tuning. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** i just make sure everything is working smoothly for managing every information. ### 24. Life Saver **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I liked being able to monitor SIDs on database instances. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** A small dislike but it would be the cost of the product. Oracle instances come with a premium cost vs SQL instances. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** This product is great for a team that wants to add it to their Solarwinds Portfolio, especially if Database monitoring is a need. There are other Database monitoring tools, but this will allow a small IT team to have one pane of glass for troubleshooting. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** This will be beneficial for those with minimal database experiences. In tough situations, it is good for a non DB person to be able to dive into this product and see potential issues like long running queries that need to be killed that cause service degradation. ### 25. Good to go with the product **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sanjeevan S. | Associate Consultant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** User friendly to use, customize to the requirements. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Implementation process took long time to do. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Monitoring network devices via Solar winds ### 26. SolarWinds DPA is an Excellent at its job - Performance Monitoring **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2019 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Reporting, the detailed information regarding the issues it is showing. Excellent for trending SQL Performance over time. Excellent for monitoring deadlocks and blocking. Super clear Interface Good for trending SQL query changes over time. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** A better explanation of how to use the SQL plan should be implemented. Implement recommendations from the console. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are use DPA to check the speed and reliability of our databases and use the reporting to streamline our queries. ### 27. DPA makes life so much easier in the Database world. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matt R. | Matt Rees, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 16, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The UI is a great way of drawing your attention to the potential or ongoing problems with your DB. You can see at a glance or an even more in depth view if you so wish. It has helped us build trends and resolve problems by simply allowing the program to monitor our DB. If you're looking for a program to monitor and even predict potential issues with you DB this is it. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** It doesn't integrate into NPM as well as other modules and doesn't offer some of the detailed views and charts that NPM generally offers. Other than that it's great. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** If you are looking for software to monitor and bring DB problems to your attention then this is it. It's extremely helpful, not too hard to set up and will give you peace of mind once you're live. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It prevents downtime or even future downtime, by allowing us to nip potential issues in the bud before they happen. Also a much easier way of seeing the DB etc. ### 28. Must Have tool for Any SQL DBA **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** anup s. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Ability to see current activities from multiple aspect/view is best thing for me. When there is a an issue with any Server and need to quickly narrow down to the right place of root cause this is a tool allows me to focus on right places and remove all sorts of noise from data. Tagging and Annotation is another great feature. Ability to see the historical details/plan/ is very helpful while working on Query performance. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 1) I can not search the specific text on any of the sub screen when drill down to session/sql/machine etc... tabs. 2) there is only one way to search the SQL by actual text is "SQL TEXT" and that is not complete. it would be good to have some place we can search specific sql I am looking for. 3) any adhoc sql/queries are not grouped to gather (like procedures) and hence its historical details can not be viewed. it will be good to have some way of connecting those adhoc sqls using same plan and being able to generate execution history. 4) on the same adhoc plan tab, for any given plan we have to drill down each sql manually one by one. it would be god to have some kind of summary popup/tool-tip when we hover over the plan in DPA. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is a go to tool for me in my current work place for finding/analyzing/solving any type of SQL DB issues. it removes the waste from screen speed up the process that increases the over all cycle time for resolving any DB issue. ### 29. A very useful database monitoring tool which eases troubleshooting very much **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Parag K. | Database Administrator, Internet, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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 SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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 **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** The tool is recommended because its very easy to use and rich in feature set **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability 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. ### 30. Database Performance Analyzer review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Greg A. | Senior Database Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 26, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The software is easy to upgrade and administer. SolarWinds provides good support. The main dashboard shows which database instances are experiencing the greatest wait times. It also shows those with the greatest upward wait times. There is a status summary with counts that are color coded for quickly finding issues. Below that, is a listing of all the instances with a color coded status across multiple categories. From there, you can start drilling down into specific instances and see top SQL statements, Waits, Programs, Users, etc. It is very easy to see trends or if it was just an abnormality. You can see across days or drill down into specific hours. It also provides advisors and quick resources (e.g. wait descriptions). **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The cost for licensing Oracle RAC instances is expensive. Each instance costs $3,495 at list price which adds up quickly. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Should be at the top of your list. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** When new queries are introduced into the environment and are detrimental, we quickly see when it started and the frequency that it occurs. We also use this to quickly focus on the top queries causing issues instead of isolated incidents. ### 31. Window to my SQL server **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Richard C. | Web Application Support, Investment Management, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** You can easily find the most expensive queries. we have found that DBA's and developers a like both like that application, I work in support so i can also see how the server is performing and then contact the DBA or Deve guys to say ... hay... look at what your latest software patch is doing to the DB. one of my favorite things is that you can pull data from Database Performance Analyzer into some of solarwinds other software like into Software Application module. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** SSAS .. when are we going to be able to monitor that? I'm sorry to say that the Price is the thing that is the thing I dislike the most. The amount of time i have to say well another license will cost £X that is when they normal leave my desk very quickly. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** We love the application and so do the developers, DBA and people like myself, people in application support we all use it, we have found it a bit expensive. The layout is great easy to navigate, we have just started use the alerts and the reporting features which seems to be working well. We also use Solarwinds Software Application Module which you have cnn link the two softwares together so you can have data and information that Database performance analyser gathers pulled into the software application modules dashboards. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developers can see the performance on the database with out having direct access to the database. ### 32. Solarwinds DPA **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Randy P. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I like the monitoring of access and commit times. The amount of I/O tracking is amazing. It helps to quickly drill down to the root cause, which helps in a more expedient determination of our issues. I have also noticed that we get a more heads-up on issues that have yet to be reported to us. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I have not found anything so far. I really like this feature all around. The main page is a little overwhelming at first for users, but once they learn where everything is located, the main page is perfect. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our biggest problem was tracking down where our issues were with latency and CPU usage. Also, the delay in reporting from end user issues and the database could be delay several minutes. ### 33. DPA personal review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Grant A. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I personally love the real time aspect to troubleshooting. It is often something other products can deflect. It fully integrates into other Solarwinds products like NPM. Cross vendor support is also a great benefit, SQL, Oracle, MySQl, SAP, and cloud offerings. The live charts are worth their weight in gold. being able to see and then go back in time to check before the issue happened is wonderful and one of its best features. I have used other products that over look this and the fact you can alter the granularity yourself is great. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** some of the features are needed to get the most out of the other solarwinds products. you often feel like you have to buy the set to get the most befit.The cost of the product can quickly rise. The start price is great but in reality its vastly higher when you factor in a larger environment. I know its cheaper then other solutions however when you factor in you really need other modules to make sure you're getting most out of it (SAM) it really does rack up the cost. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** personally I would use this in conjunction to owning the other solar winds products. NPM and SAM are a must **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** bottlenecks. It comes with a lot of of the box and is able to detect issues I wasn't aware of. It makes you seem like a Database performance specialist even with limited knowledge. We have seen a few speed issues just from the real time performance charts. ### 34. Casual SQL user **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matt W. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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 SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** 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. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability 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. ### 35. DPA is everything your DBA desires **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Franklin W. | Enterprise Monitoring Systems Analyst, Retail, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Even though SQL server has the information available to your DBA, it doesn't compile and present it the same way that DPA does. Not only that, but you can title specific sql actions to maintain a visual on the actions that are common and causing the highest wait times. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I dislike that the trial was only 14 days... ` **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** The setup is pretty simple... just make sure you have the right credentials for each instance! **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have already realized over 10 different issues that we were able to quickly resolve across multiple departments simply by letting it do it's thing. My DBA was giddy with excitement and we totally ended up purchasing it because of the impact it had on our business. ### 36. DPA - Precise Performance Measurement **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** 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. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability 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. ### 37. Easy to Understand and Use for Everyone **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael P. | Technical Architect, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DPA makes troubleshooting database problems easy for those that do not have a database background. Regardless of your knowledge of database, you will be able to find root cause in DPA. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The architecture limits a single poller to about 250 instances. Each poller has it's own corresponding database. I would prefer that there is a higher level parent / child relationship instead of breaking out each pair. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** DPA provides insights into database problems for all skill levels. If you have never logged into a database before or if you are a database admin, you will find that DPA provides valuable information to help make your job easier. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** DPA has provided insight into our databases for all areas (Dev, Ops, Tech, etc.). The detail of information has eliminated a lot of troubleshooting time to find root cause. We have used other database tools in the past, but none compare to the value that DPA provided. ### 38. Solarwinds DPA must have **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ethan B. | Senior Network Admin, Non-Profit Organization Management, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The amount of information given to you in one place. They make it easy to track down the issue at hand. You need need to do any other queries for trying to find the issue you have. Bring up Solarwinds DPA and you can get all the information you need. There is even a new feature that you can use DPA information and show it along side information from other modules so you have data to compare at a particular time frame. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Is there something I should dislike? The Solarwinds interface can be slow at times and I know there are ways to make it more responsive but have not gotten to optimization yet. Sometimes there can be an overwhelming amount of data. They do a really good job at delivering you anything and everything you need, just need the time to sort it all out. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** need to give it a try and see all the information it can give you. If you have at least one DB install this software and see what information you can get you never seen before. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Database bottlenecks have been much easier to locate. We recently just had an issue with a system constantly going down and we created a performance analysis comparing data from the server hardware, system, DPA and the network to find the issue. Being able to see all the data we needed including the deep dive into the DB helped us pin down the exact issue and rule out what was not the issue. ### 39. Best database performance monitoring **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christopher G. | Lead Network Engineer/Business Developer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I like that you are able to see everything involved with the databases. It is very easy to see what queries are taking the most time and you can see the exact query that is being executed. It is easy to setup and you can get monitoring going very quickly. The performance of the actual DPA application is very fast. Upgrades are very quick as well. They usually only take about 20 minutes. It supports all common DB languages. A wizard allows the adding of database instances very quickly. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The product needs more integration into the Orion platform, especially for reporting. It would be nice if the alerts and reporting were setup like the Orion platform. This product was purchased by SolarWinds and does not yet have the same feel as the Orion platform. I am sure this is on the radar and will take time. I would also like to customize the charts more that are pulled from DPA, in the Orion interface. It also needs to have some sort of agentless monitoring. The cost can be significant when monitoring a lot of instances. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** If you want to see database performance and more than you will ever use, use this product. You wont be sorry. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it mainly to solve problems with application performance. Often, it is the application's database that is the issue. DPA shows us that it really isn't even the the actual database, but improperly written queries. ### 40. “DPA is much easier to use and far more effective than the other tools I’ve used.” **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** karthik A. | NOC, Internet, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Anyone can easily understand even if they are seeing Database parameters for first time like SQL queries Transaction time, Table Locks and tools from Solarwinds are much easier to operate than any other tools. The new feature introduced in latest releases "Correlation of metrics" is most helpful and easier to find what is causing the issues. can drill down to blocked SQL Server queries to discover why the database server blocked them.Monitoring expensive queries lets you see poorly written queries, queries that take too long to respond, queries affected by CPU time, efficient queries that are delayed by slower queries. Multi-Dimensional Performance Analysis makes me troubleshooting simple. Gained time to focus on more important or strategic parts of my job. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** There is no negative feedback on Solarwinds Modules except the license part. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Best in the Tools **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** SolarWinds DPA provides visibility across application requests, SQL statements, database resources, host/OS, network, virtualization, and storage performance. DPA incorporates wait-time analysis so the focus is not only on health, but on the speed at which the database responds to application requests. With “slow” rapidly becoming the new “broken,” SolarWinds DPA empowers database administrators, developers, and all IT pros to quickly pinpoint the root cause of performance issues. It then provides valuable advice for quickly resolving the issues. ### 41. Database Performance Analyzer - Keep your DB in safe hands **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chinmay C. | IT Infrastructure Consultant, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Drill down into your SQL Server database to pinpoint the root cause of poor performance. When a SQL Server database instance includes Availability Groups (AGs), the DPA homepage provides the following information: The AG status icon AG_status_icons.png identifies database instances that include AGs. The color of the dot indicates the AG status. An AG status summary box shows the number of database instances with partially healthy or unhealthy AGs. As with other status summary boxes, click the filter next to a status to display only those instances. AG_filter.png When you drill in to a database instance that includes AGs, click the AG Status tab to see the status of AGs, databases, and replicas, including synchronization and failover status information. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** wrong parsed query in mysql slave Alerting needs to be more crisp Custom Report for Resources for a Program in DPA Automatic exporting for DPA logs should be added into newer versions **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** The UI and ease of use is better with SolarWinds DPA **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Currently all of our DB's are under DPA monitoring. Its ease of use makes itself more prompt than the other tools. The application is mostly used for the AWS environments. Oracle 10gR2 (10.2.0.5) is not supported with DPA 10.2.579 ### 42. Deep Dive Analytics for all Engineers **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The ease of use for non-DBAs and constant improvements to the platform. The product as a whole is very easy to implement in large-scale environments and the current roadmap is following the industry trend of moving relational databases to the cloud (aka, Amazon RDS, etc.) **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Lack of a customizable reporting engine to create reports for external stakeholders. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Take advantage of the free demo and lookup the DPA Training YouTube Playlist on the SolarWinds channel. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** We monitor production databases from across the enterprise; which allows us to correlate incidents through our full stack; from customers > websites > app > db > virtualization > storage > network. The insights we gain from DPA commonly allow us to provide engineers with metrics showing necessary improvements to codebase (developers), database schema (DBAs), and server right-sizing (virtualization and storage engineers). The end result is FAST identification of root-causes without back and forth finger pointing. The ease of use for non-DBAs is an extremely important feature as well, as we have a wide range of consumers of this data. ### 43. DPA Keeps SQL Running Smoothly. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I love the query advice tab. It is great to have specific issues highlighted and ready for review. The real-time tab is always useful for our help desk team. Solarwinds Thwack user community is full of amazing resources and tips for getting the most out of your DPA install. You really can't say enough about Solarwinds' after install support for their products. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** I dislike that we only have a single instance licensed. We regularly repoint DPA to whatever database is generating users calls. It'd be much better if we were able to monitor all of our databases at once. Management consistently balks at the cost of additional licensing (this seems to be a regular concern with our Solarwinds products). **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** It is worth comparing this to the Idera offerings. They also do a nice job monitoring SQL performance. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** My employer does application and database hosting. We recently used DPA to identify an issue with a query more quickly than the 3rd party application developers were able to. Our client was very pleased with our speed to resolution, especially considering the so called experts were still chasing their tails. ### 44. DPA review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** dale f. | Director, Database & Systems Engineering, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** We've been using DPA for a couple of years now for our production Oracle instances. It's been incredibly valuable. Within a couple of weeks of installation, we were able to identify and correct an issue with some reporting that had been plaguing us for months. Even though we have and use Grid Control on a daily basis, without that additional wait info that DPA brought to the table we could not nail down the source of the problem. We now use it for our production MS Sql Server and MySQL instances and our DBAs are in it all day making sure everything is running well and identifying and quickly addressing issues that we see. Fantastic tool. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** After 2 years, I can't say I've found anything that I wish it did that it doesn't already do. Great tool, and the price is outstanding compared to competing products. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** All the things that happen on a daily basis in any production RDBMS environment. Performance tuning, changing (in some cases dropping) or adding indexes. Identifying poorly performing queries and giving hard data on where the problems lie to our developers so they can correct it. We literally use it all day every day. If you have Orion, the integration with other Orion tools makes end to end analysis and troubleshooting even easier. ### 45. Productivity gains from quick troubleshooting. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kyaw T. | Supervisor, *IX & DBA Teams, Government Administration, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** We purchased Confio Ignite (now DPA) as it was called back, hoping to alleviate the time taken when performance issues occurred. Due to budget constraints, we have only one SQL Server DBA which was borderline OK as far as workloads go. However, we would fall behind whenever performance issues popped up or when troubleshooting needed to take place. DPA has worked wonders for our DBA and enables him to rapidly pinpoint where the performance issue is with a SQL Server database. We have also started to use DPA to provide alerts when things are not 100% OK in our SQL Server environment. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The graphs showing top SQL statements and top waits, etc. are difficult to interpret because the colors used in the bar graphs are shades of the same color. It is often difficult to distinguish between the shades to determine which queries are the top offenders when the shades of red or green or blue are so close together. Note that this is not the case when you log in to look at details. However, the high level charts in emails are difficult to make out. I feel I should not have to log in to be able to make out the details - I am busy enough as it is. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** There are a lot of features in DPA that make it worthwhile in itself. Try the free trail to get a feel for it. Additionally, SolarWinds has built an ecosystem around it. We run SQL Server on VMware and having the ability to monitor the VM on which SQL Server is running is very useful for a DBA (the VMware module adds VM stats to DPA - it is a separately purchasable module and not part of DPA). It lets the DBA independently monitor and verify the performance and state of the VM w/o having to bother the system administrator. This lets the DBA determine whether or not the host VM is having resource issues, etc. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** 1. I get quick resolution to performance issues that used to take a lot longer to troubleshoot. 2. I get alerts in advance of something bad about to happen. We do not have to wait for application users to alert us to issues. 3. We have started to use DPA for our Oracle standard edition as it works so well with SQL Server. Although we have Oracle Enterprise Manager for our Oracle Enterprise databases, this does not cover monitoring Oracle Standard Edition databases. ### 46. Got a problem with your database performance, and the DBA blames the network, install DPA! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jennifer A. | Senior Network Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 01, 2018 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The ability to drill down on queries and to download reports with graphs for management. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** 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" !! **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** 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. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have proved that it is NOT the network. We now have regular quarterly database maintenance windows! ### 47. Network Tools Engineer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sima G. | Network Tools Engineer, Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** DPA is intuitive. Fresh interface and very easy to. I like that DPA gives me more root causes of database performance issues . **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Yet, I don't have something to dislike . **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** DPA is very good if you want a centralized solution. **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** I can manage all my databases from one place. ### 48. One of the best performance analyzers on the market **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Varaprasad I. | Engineering Specialist Advisor | Associate Director Software Development, Health, Wellness and Fitness, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** The stunningly easy way to see a visual with the expensive queries bringing down system's performance. Works really well with both Oracle and SQLServer. DBAs life has become so easy due to this software **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Price is on the higher end, but definitely realizes the ROI in the mid-long term. This software becomes a little redundant once everyone moves to a c full cloud storage solution. Trial period for 14 days was too little to evaluate but was able to extend thru the account manager **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Evaluate your long term ROI versus short term since you may not get full ROI within 1-2 years. You will however see the results immediately **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Definitely shorter turn around time to resolve issues as this software pin points the bottle necks right away. There's an alerting mechanism that sets our DBA team to be more proactive ### 49. Easy tools and efficient **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cláudia J. | Projetos , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Interface friendly, easy customizations, emission reports, creations alerts, instalations and show where have problem in data base, do what it says. Easy for add and remove data base, i think is better do work in option of remove the daba base only monitoring, but not lost your informations, and if after the user beed see her can do. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Months ago I have a problem in migrations server, when I try a new integrations with NPM. After more troubelshotter and grant help solarwinds team, all was it ok. Maybe to work in to simplify this process is better. **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Ah add another tada base for monitoring. EX: Postgre, and Dababase not SQL . **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Whem a daba base server os sistem are slow we can see before of the final user, for us this is a great reasons for user DPA. ### 50. DPA to trust your database **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rasik R. | Consultant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2017 **What do you like best about SolarWinds Database Observability?** When a SQL Server database instance includes Availability Groups (AGs), the DPA homepage provides the following information: The AG status icon AG_status_icons.png identifies database instances that include AGs. An AG status summary box shows the number of database instances with partially healthy or unhealthy AGs. As with other status summary boxes, click the filter next to a status to display only those instances. **What do you dislike about SolarWinds Database Observability?** Alerting needs to be more promising Custom Report for Resources for a Program in DPA Automatic exporting for DPA logs should be added into newer versions **Recommendations to others considering SolarWinds Database Observability:** Great tool!!! Ease of access Ease of use Easy to deploy Very light weight Data integrity is maintained **What problems is SolarWinds Database Observability solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its ease of use makes itself more prompt than the other tools. The application is mostly used for the AWS environments. Oracle 10gR2 (10.2.0.5) is not supported with DPA 10.2.579 ## SolarWinds Database Observability Discussions - [How does SolarWinds Database Observability perform in terms of analytics depth and total cost of ownership?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-does-solarwinds-database-observability-perform-in-terms-of-analytics-depth-and-total-cost-of-ownership) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Does DPA allow exporting of all captured information?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/dpa-exporting) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Is it recommended to have a DPA server located at each site you are monitoring?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/dpa-location) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [What databases and platforms can you monitor?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/dpa-monitoring) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [How do I access DPA? Do I have to install anything on my PC to view the interface?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/dpa-access) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [View SolarWinds Database Observability pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/database-observability/reviews?page=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-14+04%3A44%3A12+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=a77dbe52-ad23-470f-99b6-8e61555376f1&secure%5Btoken%5D=cf7426bc91f703a488270ce9041529e6adf218a6e498d37544afe5c1482018c9&format=llm_user) ## SolarWinds Database Observability Integrations - [Ansible Control Node on Debian 10](https://www.g2.com/products/ansible-control-node-on-debian-10/reviews) - [Azure Active Directory Domain Services](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-active-directory-domain-services/reviews) - [Cisco Meraki](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-meraki/reviews) - [Google Cloud SQL](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-sql/reviews) - [ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus MSP](https://www.g2.com/products/manageengine-servicedesk-plus-msp/reviews) - [MongoDB](https://www.g2.com/products/mongodb/reviews) - [Windows Server](https://www.g2.com/products/terracloudx-windows-server/reviews) ## SolarWinds Database Observability Features **Functionality** - Monitoring - Alerting - Logging - Response Time - Reporting - Data Visualization **Management** - Data Replication - Performance Analysis **Functionality** - Platform support **Agentic AI - Database Monitoring** - Cross-system Integration **Administration** - Error Alerts - Service Automation **Agentic AI - Data Warehouse Automation** - Proactive Assistance ## Top SolarWinds Database Observability Alternatives - [Dynatrace](https://www.g2.com/products/dynatrace/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,231 reviews) - [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (689 reviews) - [SAP HANA Cloud](https://www.g2.com/products/sap-hana-cloud-2025-10-01/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (517 reviews)