In May, we hosted the Database Portfolio Q2 2026 Product Update. The session gave customers a closer look at the latest releases across the SolarWinds database portfolio. It also highlighted the priorities shaping the months ahead.

The webinar focused on major features shipped across the portfolio over the last six months. It also highlighted near-term priorities discussed by product leaders. Just as importantly, it connected those updates to the day-to-day challenges database teams are trying to solve. Those challenges include performance issues, hybrid complexity, alerting, observability, and the pressure to get to root cause faster.

A lot is happening across the SolarWinds database portfolio. However, the updates are easier to understand when they are viewed together rather than as isolated product changes. Database teams no longer work in neat, single-platform environments. Instead, they manage SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, cloud database services, and hybrid estates that stretch across on premises and SaaS. At the same time, they are expected to troubleshoot faster, explain issues more clearly, and reduce the reactive work that eats into the day.

Watch the webinar on demand: SolarWinds Database Portfolio Q2 2026 Product Update

Four Takeaways

This update connects product changes to the real work DBAs, database engineers, and IT operations teams are doing. As a result, customers get a clearer view of what is new, what is improving, and what the team is prioritizing across the portfolio.

The webinar was built around three questions: what have we delivered recently, what are we focusing on next, and what themes are shaping the portfolio right now?

Across those questions, four themes stood out.

First, AI is becoming more practical. Database teams do not need more hype. They need tools that help them work faster, reduce noise, and make tuning and troubleshooting less manual. That showed up clearly in AI Query Assist. It uses execution-plan context to suggest performance-focused SQL rewrites instead of acting like a generic AI text tool.

Second, hybrid flexibility still matters. Some customers want to keep their database tooling self-hosted. Others want SaaS. Many need both. Because of that, the session emphasized flexibility rather than a single operating model.

Third, the user experience is getting cleaner. That showed up in the newer SQL Sentry portal experience and the evolving SolarWinds Observability SaaS database experience. In both cases, the focus is on helping teams move from signal to diagnosis with fewer clicks and better context.

Finally, platform breadth still matters. Customers do not want point solutions that stop at one engine or one layer of the stack. Instead, they want monitoring and observability that reflect the reality of modern estates. That means broader database coverage, better context, and less fragmentation between tools.

What Customers Can Use Now

One of the most useful parts of the webinar was the focus on what customers can use now.

For SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA), recent updates include automated database discovery, improvements to DPA Central, AI Query Assist, universal licensing tiers, secure OAuth 2.0 email support, and expanded Azure SQL metrics. Discovery matters because it helps close a real operational blind spot: database instances that never make it into the monitoring workflow. That same issue is highlighted in The Database You Don’t Know About, which focuses on finding unmonitored database instances and bringing them directly into the DPA registration workflow.

SQL Sentry also saw meaningful updates. Those include the modernized web portal, dark mode, stronger security updates, AI Query Assist, platform-driven alerting, reusable portal templates, and contained availability group support. Together, those changes support a broader push toward faster diagnosis and more direct paths from alert to action. Recent Plan Explorer coverage reinforces that same theme by showing how teams can move more directly from performance alerts to plan-level analysis and diagnosis.

Meanwhile, SolarWinds Observability SaaS continues to improve its database experience. Recent work includes a more modern user interface, stronger root cause analysis workflows, better scale and rendering performance, OpenTelemetry-related work, and expanded AI Query Assist support.

Taken together, these updates show a clearer effort to make the portfolio feel more consistent while still respecting the strengths of each product.

What To Watch Next

The webinar also highlighted a set of areas the team discussed as near-term focus across the portfolio.

For DPA, that includes SAP HANA performance monitoring, Docker deployment support, AI Query Assist expansion for MySQL and PostgreSQL, and discovery improvements designed to reduce duplicate registrations across the estate.

In SQL Sentry, the areas discussed included Linux OS metric collection, integrated Top SQL visibility in the web portal, distributed availability group visibility, portal export improvements, and broader authentication options.

For SolarWinds Observability SaaS, the session pointed to more root cause analysis enhancements, tuning-advisor style guidance, Oracle monitoring support, and AI-assisted slow query triage.

More broadly, the pattern across these areas of focus is clear: less manual effort, broader database coverage, more usable observability, and better support for hybrid environments.

What This Means for Database Teams

For many database teams, operational pressure is the real issue. They need to know what changed, why performance shifted, and how database behavior connects to application and infrastructure context. They also need to do that without jumping across disconnected tools.

That is why the broader shape of this update matters. The webinar showed a practical effort to connect deep database monitoring with a wider observability and operational workflow story. In practice, that can mean less guesswork, less swivel-chair troubleshooting, and more context when it counts. It matters even more when many DBAs are still dealing with too much reactive work and too little visibility into root cause.

Just as importantly, these updates help customers stay connected to the wider database conversation. Communities like THWACK® give practitioners a place to follow product discussions and see what other teams are asking. The return of sqlperformance.com adds another layer for readers who want deeper technical database content.

A healthy database content strategy needs more than one layer. It needs product updates, community discussion, practical blogs, and deeper technical material for practitioners who want to go further.

Further Reading and Resources

If you want to explore the products and capabilities mentioned in the session in more detail, these resources are a useful next step:

Tags:
database discovery
database monitoring
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer
unmonitored databases