All Posts

The High-Performance DBA: Breaking the Burnout Cycle in Modern Database Teams
April 1, 2026
Kevin Kline

In this article, Kevin Kline introduces The High-Performance DBA webcast series, drawing on insights from our recent State of Database Report to explain why DBA burnout is rising and how teams can move beyond constant reactivity.

Read The High-Performance DBA Series

 

Inside the Black Box: Bridging the Database Observability Gap
March 27, 2026
Kevin Kline

Over the past 15 years, Agile and DevOps have accelerated application delivery, enabling faster, more reliable releases. Yet the database layer often remains a blind spot for observability and performance monitoring.

In this article, Kevin Kline shows why closing the database observability gap is critical to improving performance, efficiency, and resilience for DBAs, developers, and the businesses that depend on their data.

What Practitioners Really Want from an AI Agent in IT
July 30, 2026
Robert BlairVega
TL; DR Practitioners don’t want “AI for AI’s sake”—they want an agent that can explain complex incidents clearly with concise, contextual issue summaries. Root cause assist is critical because it…
Help Desk vs. Service Desk: Understanding the Key Differences and Why a Service Desk is the Future
July 30, 2026
SolarWinds
Originally published Sept. 10, 2024, and updated July 25, 2026. IT support isn’t one-size-fits-all — here’s how to know which model fits your team. In IT support, “help desk” and…
SAP HANA Under Pressure, Part 2: How to Tune Queries and Resolve Blocking
July 28, 2026
SolarWinds

Learn how to prioritize SAP HANA query tuning, resolve blocking, and validate performance improvements with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.

The Phantom Pilot and the Myth of the Average User
July 26, 2026
Jonathan Morgan
“We must design for the way people behave, not for how we would wish them to behave.” — Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity The U.S. military had a problem…
How THWACK Missions Turn Database Community Engagement Into Product Learning
July 21, 2026
SolarWinds

Noun – thwack (plural thwacks)

  1. An act of hitting hard, especially with a flat implement or a stick; a whack; also, a powerful stroke involved in such hitting; a blow, a strike.

Noun – mission (countable and uncountableplural missions)

  1. (countable) A set of tasks that fulfills a purpose or duty; an assignment set by an employer, or by oneself.

All Database Blogs

Building the Next Phase of Observability Around Openness, Context, and Action
July 15, 2026
SolarWinds
Observability is entering a new phase. AI is reshaping how teams detect and resolve issues, OpenTelemetry means open standards are the default expectation, and there is growing pressure to connect…
SAP HANA Under Pressure, Part 1: How to Diagnose Slowdowns with Wait-Based Analysis
July 14, 2026
SolarWinds

SAP HANA slowdowns are easy to misread when teams start with infrastructure symptoms alone. Learn how wait-based analysis can help database teams identify where delay is building, what changed, and which SQL, blocking, plan, or resource context matters most.

Why SAP HANA Performance Is an Application Owner Problem, Not Just a DBA Problem
July 14, 2026
Owen Murphy
When SAP HANA performance drops, the impact doesn’t stay in the database team. Application owners are often left managing escalations without enough visibility to explain what’s wrong. Here’s why that gap matters and how shared database insight can help.
ITSM for Healthcare: Compliance, Assets, and the Help Desk You Actually Need
July 14, 2026
Lauren Okruch
Healthcare IT teams operate under a different kind of pressure. They are supporting clinicians, protecting sensitive patient data, managing distributed assets, and keeping critical systems available across hospitals, clinics, labs,…
ITSM for Financial Services: Change Management, Audit Trails, and What Regulators Actually Want
July 14, 2026
Lauren Okruch
It’s three weeks before your SOX audit. The auditors send their scope letter with a routine request: “Provide a complete population of all production changes to core banking systems for…
123199