Documentation forDatabase Performance Analyzer

DPA 2025.2 system requirements

Release date: May 27, 2025

These requirements were updated on June 17, 2025.

SolarWinds strongly recommends that you install Database Performance Analyzer on a server that is neither public, nor internet-facing. To learn about best practices for configuring your Database Performance Analyzer installation securely, see Best practices to secure SolarWinds Products.

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

For information about the relationships between the DPA server, repository database, and monitored instances, see DPA architecture.

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

Recommendations for the DPA Central Server

If you have multiple DPA servers and you configure one to be the DPA Central server, make sure it meets the following requirements in addition to other DPA server requirements.

SolarWinds recommends configuring DPA Central on a server that is also used to monitor database instances. Having a separate server only for DPA Central is neither required nor recommended.

  0 - 50 users 51 - 100 users
CPU cores 4 6
RAM  4 GB 6 GB
Disk space 20 GB 20 GB

These estimates are based on the size of the cached data for each user per DPA server monitoring 250 database instances. Adjust as needed based on your deployment.

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.

  • Although DPA will work with the Express editions of Oracle and SQL Server, SolarWinds does not officially support these editions for the repository because of the database size limits. If you need a free database for an evaluation, SolarWinds recommends using a MySQL database.

  • For AWS-hosted repositories, see the sizing requirements.

  • If you choose Azure SQL Database as your repository, SolarWinds recommends two or more database throughput units (DTU) per monitored database instance. See the Azure SQL Database DTU Calculator for more information.

Repository database server minimum requirements

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

  • To see the Amazon RDS database types and versions that are supported for a DPA repository database, see Supported database versions.

  • For Azure, SolarWinds recommends two or more database throughput units (DTUs) per monitored database instance. See DTU-based purchasing model overview for more information.

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.

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

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.

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.