Professional SQL Server® 2005 Performance Tuning

Chapter 10. Capturing, Measuring, and Replaying a Workload Using SQL Profiler

A system's performance can be measured at any time with any workload. A workload contains rich data for a specific scenario and time period. In this chapter, a workload refers to SQL trace output data that can be replayed by SQL 2005 Profiler. Analyzing trace events in a workload helps with troubleshooting, performance tuning, and measuring database usage data for capacity planning. Using SQL Profiler to capture, measure, and replay a workload provides an inexpensive approach to establish and compare SQL Server performance baselines.

This chapter covers the necessary building blocks for using SQL Profiler to replay a workload. After learning how to capture, measure, and replay a workload, you will walk through three usage scenarios. The first scenario demonstrates a process using the Profiler's replay feature to measure the overall performance gain for a workload. The second scenario compares the result of using workload replays on different SQL server configurations. The last scenario demonstrates using Profiler to send multiple workloads to a single server.