A customer provides an SQL Server Analysis Services trace file to analyze. You save this file into a trace table and execute T-SQL code to analyze the results. Rather than getting descriptive values for the EventClass and EventSubclass data, you get numerical values. How do you resolve these numerical values to meaningful descriptive names? Check out this tip to learn more.  Read more...

Monitoring blocking can be problematic when you cannot catch it in the act. This article will show you an easy way to configure a SQL Server Profiler Trace to monitor blocking  Read more...

In a previous tip we looked at the steps to Create a Trace Template in Profiler. In this tip we will look at a few more tips such as creating a trace template from an existing trace file and saving a trace file to a SQL Server table.   Read more...

Running Profiler traces against multiple servers becomes a painful process when it’s time to collate and filter all that data. It would be time-consuming, frustrating and messy if Laerte hadn’t written this handy PowerShell script (complete with examples) to help you out.  Read more...

How to use Profiler to generate TSQL scripts that can be modified and automated to run as a server-side trace  Read more...

In this postI show how you can use StreamInsight to take events coming from SQL Server Profiler in real-time and do some analytics whilst the data is in flight. Here is the solution for that post. The download contains Project that reads events from a previously recorded trace file Project that starts a trace and captures events in real-time from a custom trace definition file (Included) It is a very simple solution and could be extended.  Read more...

How to test and tune a stored procedure?  Read more...

Using the Trace Management objects API it is possible to capture the events happening on SQL Server or indeed Analysis Services. I got to thinking that this would be a good thing to stream out in real time in StreamInsight and do some analysis “In Flight”. So here is a short video of me doing just that.  Read more...

Deanna Dicken examines a SQL Server Profiler event to determine object access...who is using the object, when, and how. This gives the SQL developer or database administrator much needed information for impact analysis prior to a change or the decommissioning of a SQL Server object.  Read more...

In this tip we will look at an add-in that helps you better identify changes between two versions of an SSIS package.  Read more...

This white paper provides step-by-step guidelines for diagnosing and troubleshooting common performance problems by using publicly available tools.  Read more...

Complete package to allow tracking of any data that Profiler can capture and storage for auditing purposes, use to satisfy SOX compliance.  Read more...

We've all had them. One of those stored procedures that is huge and contains complex business logic which may or may not be executed. These procedures make it an absolute nightmare when it comes to debugging problems because they're so complex and have so many logic offshoots that it's very easy to get lost when you're trying to determine the path that the procedure code took when it ran. Fortunately Profiler lets you define custom events that you can raise in your code and capture in a trace so you get a better window into the sub events occurring in your code.  Read more...

In Part 2 of our series we will examine how to create custom templates and how to save collected trace data.  Read more...

The Trace File Source adapter is a useful addition to your SSIS toolbox. It allows you to read 2005 and 2008 profiler traces stored as .trc files and read them into the Data Flow. From there you can perform filtering and analysis using the power of SSIS  Read more...

The sixth and last module of the training course "Becoming a Profiler Master", describes how to create custom Profiler traces, tailored to the specific performance problem you wish to investigate.  Read more...

The fifth module of the training course "Becoming a Profiler Master", looks in details at the data columns that are associated with the Profiler events discussed in module 4.  Read more...

The fourth module of the training course "Becoming a Profiler Master", takes a detailed look at the many events and event categories that can be collected with Profiler.  Read more...

This, the third installment of the "Becoming a Profiler Master" online training course, shows how to start, stop and control Profiler and how to save the traces.  Read more...

This module, part 2 of the online training course "Becoming a Profiler Master", discusses the inner workings of Profiler.  Read more...