DPA 2023.2 system requirements

Release date: April 18, 2023

See the following sections for minimum supported system requirements:

• DPAIM compatibility
• Port requirements
• DPA server requirements
• Repository database requirements
• Virtual environment requirements
• Web browsers
• Requirements for monitoring MySQL database instances
• Java requirements

For information about the database instances you can register for monitoring, see Database instances DPA can monitor.

DPA Integration Module (DPAIM) compatibility

If you want to display data from this version of DPA in the SolarWinds Platform, DPAIM 2020.2 or later is required.

Port requirements

Review and open the following ports in the firewall to support communication to and from the DPA server.

No additional ports are required for DPA Central.

Port	Protocol	Service or process	Direction	Description
8124 (on premises) or 443 (cloud)	TLS	Windows: Ignite PI Service Linux: Java/Tomcat	Bidirectional	Default HTTPS port for the web server.
8127	TCP	Windows: Ignite PI Service Linux: Java/Tomcat	Internal	This port is used internally by DPA. It does not need to be opened to internal or external traffic, but it needs to be available for DPA to use.
443	TLS	Windows: Ignite PI Service Linux: Java/Tomcat	Outbound	(Optional) To participate in the SolarWinds Improvement Program (SWIP), allow access to api.solarwinds.com for uploads and downloads.solarwinds.com for downloads of XML configuration files. (Optional) To enable online license activation or deactivation, allow access to licenseserver.solarwinds.com. Otherwise, use offline activation or deactivation. See Activate DPA licenses
80	TCP/HTTP	Windows: Ignite PI Service Linux: Java/Tomcat	Outbound	(Optional) To allow product updates in self-managed deployments, allow access to updates.solarwinds.com.
587	SMTP	Windows: Ignite PI Service Linux: Java/Tomcat	Outbound	(Optional) To use the default SMTP server for outgoing email from DPA, allow access to mail.authsmpt.com. Otherwise, configure DPA to use a custom SMTP server.

If you are using the DPA Integration Module to integrate DPA with the SolarWinds Platform, see the DPAIM port requirements.

Other connections to consider include the following. The ports used for these connections depend on how your organization configures the connections:

• Monitored database instances – TCP
• Repository database – TCP
• VMware (usually 443) – TCP
• LDAP – TCP
• Custom SMTP server – based on the SMTP server
• SNMP trap – UDP

DPA server requirements

Do not install DPA on the same server as SQL Sentry. Features that leverage Platform Connect (for example, sending alert notifications to a third-party notification services) will not function correctly.

You can install SolarWinds DPA on any physical or virtual Windows or Linux server that meets the following requirements. You can also launch DPA in:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI):
  • A DPA AMI with DPA installed runs on the supported Amazon Linux 2 operating system. This image does not include a repository.
  • DPA uses the AWS Marketplace Metering Service to calculate charges.
• Azure Marketplace:
  • The DPA virtual machine contains a DPA server on Windows and a built-in Microsoft SQL Server database instance configured as the DPA repository.
  • Licenses must be purchased.

DPA server minimum requirements

Requirements depend on the number of database instances you plan to monitor. These requirements are for the DPA application running on the server. They do not include the DPA repository requirements.

To monitor more than 20 database instances, you must allocate additional memory to the DPA Java heap. For instructions, see Increase the memory allocated to the DPA Java heap.

These are estimates and represent the minimum requirements. Monitored instances with a large number of active sessions or large database caches can increase the DPA server requirements.

Server type	Resource	1 - 20 monitored DB instances	21 - 50 monitored DB instances	51 - 100 monitored DB instances	101 - 250 monitored DB instances1
Self-managed	CPU cores	4	6	8	12
	RAM	10 GB	16 GB	24 GB	40 GB
AWS cloud		t3.xlarge	t3.2xlarge	m4.2xlarge	m4.4xlarge
Azure cloud		D4as v6	D8as v6	D8as v6	D16as v6
All	Disk space	40 GB	55 GB	75 GB	150 GB
	Operating system	Windows Server 2022 Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows 10 and 11 (evaluation only) Linux
	Operating system architecture	x86-64 chipset (not ARM chipsets)
	Thread limit (Linux only)2	Max user process: 4096 Max open files: 2048	Max user process: 4096 Max open files: 2048	Max user process: 6144 Max open files: 4096	Max user process: 8192 Max open files: 6144
	Character sets	To support a multibyte language, the DPA server, repository, and monitored instances must be configured with the same character set.

¹ If you plan to monitor more than 250 database instances, consider using more than one DPA server and using DPA Central to see information across your entire monitored estate.

² To check the current max user process setting, run ulimit -u. To check the current max open files setting, run ulimit -n. To change the limits, edit the following file and restart the server: /etc/security/limits.conf

DPA repository database requirements

The repository database stores the data collected by DPA. A supported database instance must be installed on the database server.

Do not host the repository on a database instance that you plan to monitor, because this affects the performance of that instance.

Supported repository database versions

Database	Edition	Version	Location
Microsoft SQL Server	Standard Enterprise	2022 (Windows or Linux) 2019 (Windows or Linux) The latest Service Pack is supported unless otherwise noted.	Self-managed AWS Azure
Azure SQL Database	Standard Service Tier or higher	V12	Azure
MySQL	Community Enterprise	8.4 8 Amazon RDS for MySQL 8.0 Amazon Aurora for MySQL-compatible 8.0	Self-managed AWS Amazon RDS Amazon Aurora Azure
Oracle	Standard Enterprise	23ai (single tenant and multitenant) 21 (single tenant and multitenant) 19.x (single tenant and multitenant)	Self-managed AWS

Azure SQL Managed Instance (ASMI) is not supported as a DPA repository database.

Repository database server minimum requirements

If you install DPA on the same server as the repository database, the server must meet these requirements in addition to the DPA server requirements.

Location	Requirement	1 - 20 monitored DB instances	21 - 50 monitored DB instances	51 - 100 monitored DB instances	101 - 250 monitored DB instances
Self-managed	CPU cores	6	8	12	16
Amazon RDS	DB instance configuration	db.m5.xlarge or db.m5.2xlarge	db.m5.2xlarge	db.m5.4xlarge	db.m5.8xlarge
Azure	DTUs	2 - 40	42 - 100	102 - 200	202 - 500
	vCores	6	8	12	16
All	Database cache available for DPA	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB	64 GB
	Disk space	240 GB	600 GB	1.2 TB	3 TB

Required administrator credentials

You must know the following credentials for the database instance hosting your DPA repository.

Repository database type	Credentials
SQL Server	SYSADMIN
Oracle	database administrator (DBA)
MySQL	repository administrator Alternatively, you can: Provide the credentials of a user with privileges to create the repository user. The privileged user requires the Create, Drop, and Create User permissions and must be able to grant the following permissions: GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on <databaseName> Where <databaseName> is the repository database you create or select when you set up the MySQL repository storage. Run a script to create the repository user.
Azure SQL Database	repository administrator Alternatively, you can: Provide the credentials of a user with privileges to create the repository user. This user must be a member of the db_owner role. Run a script to create the repository user.

Virtual environment requirements

In a virtual environment, DPA can remotely connect to the following to monitor the virtual environment that virtualized database instances are running on. The virtualized database instances must be registered separately from the virtual environment.

Software	Version
VMware vCenter Server	8.0 7.0 6.7 6.5
VMware ESX/ESXi Host	8.0 7.0 6.7 6.5

Web browsers

You can use the following browsers to access the DPA web interface.

Browser	Version
Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge	The latest stable version
Mozilla Firefox	The latest stable version
Google Chrome	The latest stable version

Internet Explorer (IE) and legacy versions of Microsoft Edge are not supported. If you access DPA using these browsers, some DPA functionality is not available or does not function correctly. For example, the Find SQL and Resources tabs are not accessible, and drop-down menus in other areas do not function correctly.

MySQL requirements

SolarWinds recommends the following settings to provide the best monitoring capabilities for MySQL monitored database instances.

MySQL Performance Schema

The Performance Schema monitors server events and collects performance data. If the Performance Schema is not enabled, DPA provides limited data. Monitoring with the Performance Schema disabled excludes the following data:

• All instrumented wait events
• All wait operations
• All file wait time, broken out by file
• All object wait time, broken out by index and table
• SQL statistics
• Performance-schema dependent alerts

The Performance Schema must be enabled at server startup. In MySQL versions 5.6.6 and later, the Performance Schema is enabled by default.

Global Instrumentation and Thread Instrumentation

Global Instrumentation and Thread Instrumentation must be enabled in the Performance Schema configuration. Disabling these instruments has the same effect as disabling the Performance Schema.

By default, DPA enables these instruments in the configuration. However, if you select the Leave As Is option for Performance Schema setup, you must verify that Global Instrumentation and Thread Instrumentation are enabled in the existing Performance Schema configuration.

show_compatibility_56 system variable

If the monitored database instance is MySQL 5.7.6 or later, SolarWinds recommends turning on the show_compatibility_56 system variable. If this variable is on, DPA can collect data for all metrics.

If this variable is off and the Performance Schema is enabled, DPA cannot collect data for the following metrics:

• Selects
• Inserts
• Updates
• Deletes

Java requirements

DPA ships with JDK 11.0.24 for Windows and Linux and installs this version of Java on the DPA server. If you are installing DPA on a supported operating system, no action is required.

For unsupported operating systems, ensure that JDK 11.0.24 is installed on the DPA server. If you need to upgrade the JDK:

1. Download and install JDK 11.0.24.

2. Remove old Java information by deleting the cat.txt and cat.end files from the following directory:

   <DPA_Home>/iwc/tomcat/ignite_config/

3. At a command line, go to the DPA installation directory.

4. Enter the following command:

   ./startup.sh