Survey: Which Tracing and Analysis-Tools do you use for SQL Server?

In my session Session „Hasta la vista Profiler – Tracing with Extended Events“, which I have presented at several occasions, I used to ask the audience which tools they used for monitoring so far.

I would like to use this platform to survey on a broader range as to which tools are being used by SQL Server professionals for logging and analyzing performance-problems. In order to get a differentiated result, a classification in “Administrator” and “Developer” is certainly also interesting.

The results will be presented first at the upcoming SQLSaturday #230 on the 12th of Juli in St. Augustin/Germany at the PreCon, From SQL Traces to Extended Events. The next big switch.“, which I will be giving together with Mladen Prajdic gebe, and later on certainly also at the PASS Camp and other occasions of the German and international PASS – and of course also here in my blog itself. You can of course also keep your comments anonymous.

In the following I am listing a series of common tools.

Please simply provide your vote as a comment like in the following example – I will publish ALL answers (except plain spam/ads), even Oracle-Tools 😉

„Administrator and/or Developer“ A 3 B 1 D 2 L 0

The numbers stand for:

3: fast immer // almost all the time 2: manchmal // sometimes 1: selten // rarely -1: das Tool ist mir unbekannt // I haven’t hear of this tool

The option “unknown” at a reader’s suggestion (Thank you!).

Tools that are not used can be simply left out.

And these are the choices of tools:

A) ClearTrace
B) Datenbankoptimierungsratgeber // Database Engine Tuning Advisor
C) Dynamic Management Views (DMV’s)
D) Event Notifications
E) Extended Events unter 2008/R2
F) Extended Events unter 2012
G) Management Datawarehouse (MDW) / Data Collection Reports
H) PAL
I) PerfMon
J) RML Utilities / ReadTrace
K) SQL Diag
L) SQL Profiler
M) SQL Trace
N) Software von Drittherstellern – siehe auch O) // Third-Party Tools – also see O)
O) Andere // Other: …

– The order is alphabetical and not supposed to imply anything 🙂

My list contains solely tools shipped with SQL Server and from codeplex, but feel free to add others (point “O”)

I am totally aware that also the SQL Server version and possibly edition have an influence on the choices available, but I also do not want to make the survey all too complex. The aim of gaining an impression on the prevalence and practices of tracing-habits will certainly be reached like that, too 🙂

Thank you very much for participating – I am sure that many members of the SQL Server Community are also interested in seeing what others use for their work.

Andreas

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