Over the course of this stairway series, we're going to explore in detail the use of Extended Events as a diagnostic data collection tool, to track down causes of poor performance in SQL Server. This first level will start from a point known and familiar to many DBAs, namely the use of SQL Trace to track down and investigate long-running queries.
2021-12-22 (first published: 2015-12-23)
14,481 reads
In this Level, we'll walk through the basics of using the New Session dialog in the UI to create a new event session, define its events, actions and predicates, and establish a target for the session in which to collect the event data.
2021-11-24 (first published: 2016-01-13)
8,417 reads
In the next installment of our stairway to Extended Events, we delve into the Live Data and Target Data Viewers.
2021-02-24 (first published: 2016-05-25)
6,259 reads
In this level, we're going to dig a little deeper into the Extended Events engine, its architecture, and fundamental components. It will give you a deeper understanding of why, in general, an Extended Events session is inherently lower in overhead than an equivalent SQL Trace. We'll also investigate how to design our event sessions to minimize any unnecessary overhead during event data collection, even when we need to create relatively complex event sessions to investigate difficult performance problems.
2018-11-28 (first published: 2016-08-17)
4,809 reads
If you have not been capturing baselines on your production servers, then today is the day you can start. This article provides scripts, valid for SQL Server 2005 and higher, which anyone can use to capture basic information about a SQL Server instance.
2017-02-20 (first published: 2012-11-27)
37,167 reads
Today we have a guest editorial from Erin Stellato that reminds us that we have had support from many, and it's important to thank them from time to time.
2015-12-04
153 reads
By capturing baseline data, a well-prepared DBA should get a good idea of what potential issues they will face. In this article Erin Stellato looks at Wait Statistics and what they can tell you about your databases.
2015-07-17 (first published: 2013-02-04)
20,087 reads
It is widely acknowledged within the SQL Server community that baselines represent valuable information that DBAs should capture. Unfortunately, very few companies manage to log and report on this information, and DBAs are then forced to troubleshoot from the hip and scramble to find evidence to prove that the database is not the problem. This article will make a compelling argument for why DBAs must start capturing baseline information, and will create a roadmap for subsequent posts.
2014-10-17 (first published: 2012-11-19)
21,758 reads
In this article, we'll tackle the topic of monitoring disk space usage. By tracking how much is in use and how much is still available, over time we'll have the data we need for better capacity planning, and can ensure that a database won't ever run out of disk space.
2013-01-23
10,309 reads
By Arun Sirpal
Transaction log issues are one of the quietest ways a healthy database turns into...
By Steve Jones
I wrote earlier this week about the SQL MCP Server using the Data API...
By Brian Kelley
Yesterday, July 27, 2026, Microsoft announced a new cybersecurity effort called Project Perception. Included...
WA CS (08218154392) Jl. Joyoboyo No.34, Kemasan, Kec. Kota, Kota Kediri, Jawa Timur 64125
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Symmetric Key Encryption
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The “Successful Login” Dilemma: Why...
If I run this statement in SQL Server 2025, how is the password encrypted?
CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY MySymmetricKey WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256, KEY_SOURCE = 'My secret key source passphrase', IDENTITY_VALUE = 'My secret identity value' ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'S&perS#cretP@ssword7'; GOSee possible answers