dbWatch FAQ

dbWatch is a complete database monitoring and management solution for your database server farm.

Proactive monitoring helps you identify and resolve potential issues before it becomes a severe threat to your system, helps tune your database performance, and optimizes your database resource usage.

In this section, we will answer some common questions about dbWatch.

dbWatch Installation, Licensing and Support

Yes, dbWatch offers a free evaluation for five database instances of any supported platforms.

Fill out the form on this page to receive your evaluation license key. We can extend the license period upon request.

For tech support, users can visit the support page.

Users can also access wiki.dbwatch.com for more reference materials or visit Video and training resource page. for helpful guides and tutorials.

dbWatch has various technical and installation guides available for download on the website: www.dbwatch.com/support.

You can also visit the dbWatch Wiki for the system guide, the videos page, and our youtube channel for more tutorials.

dbWatch supports almost all versions of Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Sybase. Support for instances in Azure and AWS is also included.

The dbWatch server can be installed on Windows or Linux 64bit.

We count each pluggable database as an instance so that it will require one license per pluggable database. We also count the container as an instance since we need to monitor that to have complete control.
So a container with three pluggable database count as four instances/licenses.

No, dbWatch is agentless and does not consume many resources.


It only installs a small schema in your database instance to collect the needed performance statistics and status for monitoring.

dbWatch Control Center is a new product and not an upgrade of Enterprise Manager, so it will not overwrite or remove your existing dbWatch Enterprise Manager installation. You may safely run both in parallel while evaluating.

dbWatch Architecture & Configurations

dbWatch is built on standard, three-tier client-server architecture:

  • Database monitoring tasks are stored inside the monitored database instance (“dbWatch Engines”).
  • The application server (dbWatch Server) monitors all instances continuously
  • Client GUI (dbWatch Monitor Client) is your front end.

dbWatch does not use OS-based agents. We access the database servers directly.To learn more about the dbWatch architecture, visit this page.

Each dbWatch server can support 250 connections for Windows ( 500 if installed on Linux. This is an OS limitation in Windows and Linux.

If you have 1000 database instances to monitor, you’ll be needing four dbWatch servers on Windows  (or two if you run Linux) to monitor all those instances.
With dbWatch, you can add as many dbWatch servers as you need to connect to all your instances. Typically you will have one dbWatch server in each location or network if running large dispersed or partitioned sites, or use as many servers as you need if you manage hundreds or thousands of database instances.

dbWatch is built from the ground up with a distributed, scalable architecture. dbWatch engines are distributed to each instance, and statistics are kept locally on each instance. This avoids building huge central repositories. This keeps network traffic down and scales exceptionally well.

All reports, views, and dbWatch tasks are delivered in source form. The customer can freely customize these, or add their own tasks, views or reports. 

None required. dbWatch uses JDBC to connect to instances.
dbWatch can also be managed through a Command Line Interface (CLI)

dbWatch is built on a distributed, scalable architecture.
dbWatch schemas are distributed on each instance, and statistics are kept locally. This avoids building huge central repositories and minimizes impact on the monitored database or the network, as it only retrieves a minium of data when necessary.

dbWatch is an agentless solution. It deploys the dbWatch framework to the monitored instances. The framework is composed of procedures that retrieve the status and performance statistics needed by the dbWatch server.

Users can receive alerts thru Emails. Alerts can be fully customized and configured as to who receives what, how, and when.

Integrating dbWatch with SMS gateways or other 3rd party solutions is possible.

 

dbWatch uses fine-grained role-based access controls.
Administrators can easily grant roles to specific users within dbWatch and limit their access within the application and its different modules.

Yes, dbWatch supports high availability and cluster technology for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL and MySQL.

 Yes, dbWatch provides a variety of pre-configured performance and health reports. Users can create new reports or customize the existing ones. Refer to dbWatch Reporting.

Yes, dbWatch can automatically schedule and distribute reports to any user thru email. Users can also configure a repository for reports where all generated files will be stored.

Yes, dbWatch supports role-based access and integration with enterprise directories such as Active Directory authentication.
dbWatch can also support Kerberos authentication, OS authentication, and SSH Authentication.

Yes, To ensure the privacy of the user sessions, dbWatch encrypts all communication between the monitors and the servers. For more details on security go to this wiki page.

Yes, dbWatch provides cross-domain access and security features to allow consultants at any given moment or a specified time schedule based on the enterprise SLA.

KEY FEATURES:

dbWatch Control Center Free Trial