All 7 SQL Server Profiler & Extended Events questions
More in SQL Server Profiler & Extended Events
What are Extended Events, and why are they generally recommended over SQL Server Profiler for modern monitoring needs? How do you create an Extended Events session to capture specific long running queries on a production server? How do you analyze the data captured by an Extended Events session once it has been running for a period of time? How do you properly stop and clean up an Extended Events session once it is no longer needed? How would you design an Extended Events session to monitor for a very specific, hard to reproduce issue, such as intermittent deadlocks, in a production environment? What is the performance overhead comparison between SQL Server Profiler, server side traces, and Extended Events, and how should this inform monitoring decisions on a production system?
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SQL Server › SQL Server Profiler & Extended Events

What is SQL Server Profiler, and what is it traditionally used for?

Beginner

Answer

SQL Server Profiler is a graphical tool that captures a detailed trace of events happening on a SQL Server instance, such as every query executed, how long each one took, and any errors encountered, historically used by developers and administrators to diagnose performance problems or understand exactly what an application is sending to the database.
-- Profiler traces are configured through its graphical interface
-- selecting specific event classes like SQL:BatchCompleted to capture
Real-world example A developer uses SQL Server Profiler to capture every query an application sends to the database during a specific user action, discovering an unexpectedly large number of redundant queries being executed for a single page load.

Common follow-ups: Is SQL Server Profiler still recommended for use on production servers today?;What has largely replaced Profiler in more recent versions of SQL Server?

Extended Events;Query Optimization & Plans
All 7 SQL Server Profiler & Extended Events questions