Why sql profiler

This term is also known as SQL Server profiler. SQL Profiler may be used to capture data for real-time or future review. In addition, traces may be scheduled to run at specific times. For example, to compare performance when the database is busy or idle, one trace may be set up to run in the morning at 10 a. By: Justin Stoltzfus Contributor, Reviewer.

By: Satish Balakrishnan. Dictionary Dictionary Term of the Day. Gorilla Glass. Techopedia Terms. Then you should enter the instance name, the authentication type, and the credentials:. When the connection is established, a new trace form is shown.

In this form, there are two tabs: 1 General tab and 2 Events Selection. In this first tab, you have to enter the trace name. Then you can select whether you need to save the trace results into a table or external file and also if you need to pause the trace at a specific date-time.

Also, you can select a trace template from a drop-down list based on your needs. Note that a template is a set of tuning events that are caught by the profiler trace. There are different predefine templates such as T-SQL, Tuning or you can select the standard default template or start from scratch by selecting the Blank template:. Figure 4 — General tab of the Trace Properties form.

In the Events Selection tab, you can select all events that you need to include in the trace, not that you can add some filters. As an example, if you need only to trace the operations executed in a specific database, then you can add a filter on the database name property. Figure 5 — Events selection tab of the Trace Properties from. SQL Server Profiler can be used to detect what are the commands executed by an application over a database for security and tuning purposes.

To read more about this tool, you can refer to the official documentation. This tool takes a profiler trace as input. Events are saved in a trace file that can later be analyzed or used to replay a specific series of steps when diagnosing a problem.

The Microsoft. Avoid using this feature in new development work, and plan to modify applications that currently use this feature. Use Extended Events instead. The following table shows the features we recommend using in SQL Server to capture and replay your trace data. You can capture and save data about each event to a file or table to analyze later.

For example, you can monitor a production environment to see which stored procedures are affecting performance by executing too slowly.

SQL Server Profiler is used for activities such as:. Capturing the series of Transact-SQL statements that lead to a problem.

The saved trace can then be used to replicate the problem on a test server where the problem can be diagnosed. Monitoring the performance of SQL Server to tune workloads.

For information about tuning the physical database design for database workloads, see Database Engine Tuning Advisor. Audits record security-related actions for later review by a security administrator.

To use SQL Server Profiler, you need to understand the terms that describe the way the tool functions. For more information, see SQL Trace. Examples of these are:. All of the data generated by an event is displayed in the trace in a single row. This row is intersected by data columns that describe the event in detail. An event class is a type of event that can be traced. The event class contains all of the data that can be reported by an event.