Running Database Engine Tuning Advisor for workload

Trace is a session during which the events are captured and event data is collected. SQL Server supports a few formats for saving this collected trace data, which is known as a workload. We can save trace data (a workload) in one of the following formats:

• A trace file with .trc extension name

• A trace file in XML format with .xml extension name

• A trace table in an SQL Server database

We are going to use trace file .trc for this recipe. For detailed information regarding trace, workload, and different events of trace in profiler, refer Creating a trace or workload recipe in Chapter 1.

In this recipe, we will create a trace with SQL Server Profiler; execute some queries that will be captured in running profiler trace file and load that trace file in Database Engine Tuning tool to analyze the workload.

Tip

It is recommended to use server-side trace over profiler use on a production server as profiler can consume lot of network bandwidth resources...