James J Leddy Asked: What's the next webinar in this series?
Answered: The next webinar will be on Thursday, May 9. I should have the topic finalized in a week or so, but it will probably be something on analyzing showplan output. I just found out that the webinar software will be upgraded so that my demos will be captured in the archive. This will be important for the graphical showplan, so I need to confirm that the new software will be available before the topic is finalized.
Chris Becker Asked: How do you monitor the buffer on the client if the client is doing the trace processing?
Answered: I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here. If you want to see how much work the Profiler client is doing you can look at the output from sp_who2, and it will show processes that have a Program Name of 'Profiler'.
Ron Sirvent Asked: regarding "outside of server tracing" can you set tracing to use (run) other sets of CPUs rather then taking a performance of the server it is tracing.
Answered: No, because the heavy work of Profiler is actually looking at the kernel work that SQL Server is doing, so it has to be running right where the server itself is running.
Virender Ajmani Asked: when you capture showplan all event it has information in Binary Data column. I just want to read that. I was using readtext ...
Answered: The docs say that the Binary Data column is just the estimated cost of the plan, but somehow that doesn't seem right. If it was just the cost, you shouldn't need readtext, you should be able to just convert to another numeric datatype. But I think there is something more going on, and I will research this further.
Monica Roberts Asked: what do you think about the product Log Explorer? It is being sold by Lumigent
Answered: I have a copy of Log Explorer that I just begun to play with, so it's too early to have a real opinion of my own. However, some other SQL Server consultants, whose opinions I highly respect, say it's a tool you don't want to be without.
Bill Buzzard Asked: How do I tie oracle into the SQL trace profile?
Answered: SQL Trace is designed to work only with SQL Server as it relies heavily on the internal workings of that product and is tied directly to the source code.
James J Leddy Asked: Will you be offering followon WEBINARs on how to analyze, in more detail, what trace file is showing you and what to do to fix the problem (slow running proc, slow running query , etc..)?
Answered: Probably not in this series, but SQL Server Magazine and I are discussing future plans for when this first series of 4 webinars is completed.
Marina Medvedev Asked: Do you know of another tool from another vendor that does similar activities as the Trace/Profiler.
Answered: No other tool could give you this level of detail, because SQL Server Tracing has hooks into the actual source code.
Relevant KnowledgeBase articles:
You can access the Knowledgebase from the site http://support.Microsoft.com.
Q214799 – INF: SQL Profiler From Command Line Parameters to Temp File Usage
Q279033 – INF: Identifying Cascading Referential Integrity in SQL Profiler
Q258990 – INF: Trace in SQL Server by Using Extended Stored Procedures
Q237932 – BUG: The function fn_trace_gettable cannot read rollover files generated by SQL Profiler
Q270599 – INF: How to Programmatically Load Trace Files into Tables
Q270629 – BUG: Profiler trace files not generated when files exist
Q282749 – BUG: Deadlock Information Reported with SQL Server 2000 Profiler Is Incorrect
Q243586 – INF: Troubleshooting Stored Procedure Recompilation