The Profiler Treasure Trove
An excellent way to learn about undocumented feature use in SQL Server is to use Profiler to record the execution of stored procedures and batches on the server, especially by tools included with SQL Server. A couple of my favorites are Enterprise Manager and the Index Tuning Wizard. The replication agents also occasionally reveal some hidden goodies.
Examining a Profiler trace captured while these tools run can yield interesting details about the way the server works. For example, while watching a Profiler trace during an Index Tuning Wizard run, I discovered that the wizard creates what are known as “hypothetical” indexes—statistics-only indexes used to determine whether a different indexing strategy would improve ...
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