Applications Systems

Key differences in monitoring Amazon RDS through DPA

This article overviews what the key differences are when using DPA to monitor Amazon RDS instances

First published date

10/18/2018 12:01 PM

Last published date

10/18/2018 12:01 PM

Overview

This article overviews what the key differences are when using DPA to monitor Amazon RDS instances.

Product section

Database Performance Analyzer

Resolution

Amazon RDSSupported VersionsKey Differences
Oracle

11.2

12.1

Unavailable Alerts:

  • Oracle Alert Log Error uses V$DIAG_ALERT_EXT instead of X$DBGALERTEXT

 

Explain Plans:

  • Explain plans cannot be generated with a SYS account. You must specify a different account to generate the live plan.

 

Workarounds for not having a SYS.UTL_CON package:

  • To kill a real time session, use RDSADMIN.RDSADMIN_UTIL.KILL.
  • Trace session permissions granted through START_TRACE_IN_SESSION and STOP_TRACE_IN_SESSION

 

Microsoft SQL Server

2008 SP4

2008 R2 SP3

2012 SP3

2014

2014 SP1

 

Unavailable Alerts:

  • SQL Server Windows Service Not Running
  • SQL Server Long Running Jobs
  • SQL Server Log Has Many Virtual Logs
  • SQL Server Job Failure
  • SQL Server Error Log Alert

 

Explain Plans:

  • The DPA monitoring user does not have a sysadmin role and may have limited access to objects. you can specify a different user to generate the live plan before you generate the plan.

 

WMI-based statistics are not available:

  • CPU Queue Length
  • CPU Utilization
  • Disk Queue Length
  • Memory Paging Rate
  • Memory Utilization
  • Physical I/O Rate
  • Physical Read Rate
  • Physical Write Rate

 

Workaround for not having a sysadmin role:

  • DPA user is a member of the processadmin role
MySQL

5.6.10 and later

5.7

No differences

 

You can repoint MySQL but not Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server Instances

It is not possible to transfer a registered Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server database instance between Amazon RDS and a self-managed database, and retain SolarWinds DPA historical data. Any Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server database instance transferred between Amazon RDS and a self-managed instance opens as seperate instances.

MySQL database instances can be repointed. You can continue monitoring where you left off after transferring a database instance between Amazon RDS and self-managed. To repoint, update the connection details of the registered database to point to the new location.