This document discusses various tools and techniques for SQL Server performance analysis. It describes tools like SQL Trace, SQL Server Profiler, Distributed Replay Utility, Activity Monitor, graphical show plans, stored procedures, DBCC commands, built-in functions, trace flags, and analyzing STATISTICS IO output. These tools help identify performance bottlenecks, monitor server activity, diagnose issues using traces, and evaluate hardware upgrades. The document also covers using SQL Server Profiler to identify problems by creating, watching, storing and replaying traces.

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Database
Fundamental
Concepts
®
FC-01: Performance Analysis
DR. SUBRAMANI
PARAMASIVAM
(MANI)

2. About
me
Dr. SubraMANI Paramasivam
PhD., MCT, MCSE, MCITP, MCP, MCTS, MCSA
CEO, Principal Consultant & Trainer
@ DAGEOP (UK)
Email: mani@dageop.com
Blog: http://dataap.org/blog
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3. Contents
FC-01: Performance Analysis
• Monitoring Tools
• Exploring STATISTICS IO output
• Identifying Performance Problems with Profiler data
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Fundamental Concepts

4. FC-01: Performance Analysis
Have you done any?
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Fundamental Concepts

5. Performance Analysis
• How SQL Server & Database
performs during all sorts of
transactions and heavy loads?
• It is one of the important role of
a Database Administrator
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Fundamental Concepts

6. Performance Analysis
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Fundamental Concepts
HOW?

7. Monitoring Tools
List any tool
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Fundamental Concepts

8. Monitoring Tools
SQL Server has bunch of tools
• SQL Trace
• SQL Server Profiler
• Distributed Replay Utility
• SQL Server Management Studio Activity Monitor
• SQL Server Management Studio Graphical Show
plan
• Stored procedures
• Database Console Commands (DBCC)
• Built-in functions
• Trace flags
• Other tools
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Fundamental Concepts

9. SQL Trace
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

10. SQL Trace
• Information collected from instance through events.
• Store the information in File or SQL Server Management objects
(SMO).
• We can monitor the information about
• Locks (Deadlock)
• Data File Auto Grow
• Objects Altered
• Scan started
• SQL Batch Started/Completed
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Fundamental Concepts

11. SQL Trace & Stored Procedure
• Stored procedures to create traces
• sp_trace_create
• sp_trace_generateevent
• sp_trace_setevent
• sp_trace_setfilter
• sp_trace_setstatus
• Versions applicable
• Prior to 2005: Extended stored procedures that began with xp_trace_... (add, set)
• 2005, 2008, 2008R2, 2012: Above sp_trace_...
• 2014 onwards: Use extended events
• SQL Server Profiler – to see stored trace files.
• SQL Server Profiler (GUI) uses the above set of system SP’s.
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Fundamental Concepts

12. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

13. SQL Server Profiler
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

14. SQL Server Profiler
• It is used to monitor the SQL
server instance of the database
engine.
• Trace data can be stored in a file
or a table.
• SQL Server Profiler helps to
monitor any specific events.
• Also supports auditing the
actions performed on SQL Server
instances.
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Fundamental Concepts

15. SQL Server Profiler
• Find the cause of the problem in Queries
• Finding and diagnosing slow-running queries.
• Capturing the series of T-SQL statements that
lead to problems.
• Replicate the saved trace file in a test server
to further diagnose.
• Monitoring the performance of SQL Server to
tune workloads.
• Correlating performance counters to diagnose
problems.
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Fundamental Concepts

16. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

17. Distributed Replay Utility
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

18. Distributed Replay Utility
• Assess the impact of
• future SQL server upgrades.
• hardware and OS upgrades and SQL server tuning.
• Using Distributed replay, we can replay a workload.
• Used mainly for
• Application compatibility testing
• Performance testing
• Capacity planning
• SQL Server Profiler (SSP) & Distributed Replay Utility (DRU) overlaps.
• SSP allows single computer only
• Resource bottleneck
• SSP is less scalable solution compared to DRU
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19. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

20. SSMS Activity Monitor
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

21. SQL Server Management Studio Activity Monitor
• Information about SQL server
processes
• how the processes affects the
instance
• Tabbed windows with expandable
and collapsible panes:
• Overview
• Processes
• Resource Waits
• Data File I/O
• Recent Expensive Queries
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Fundamental Concepts

22. Activity Monitor
• Customizable
• Rearrange the order of the columns
• Sort any column
• Filter one or more columns,
• Refresh interval by default 10 seconds.
• Performance affected if <10 secs
• VIEW SERVER STATE permission required.
• System objects are used.
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Fundamental Concepts

23. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

24. Graphical Show plan
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

25. SSMS Graphical Show plan
• SQL Server Management Studio
• Interactive
• GUI Tool
• DBA or Developers interact with DB, SQL Server.
• Execute multiple queries simultaneously, view results, analyse the
query plan.
• Assists to improve the query performance.
• Execution Plans
• Display Estimated Execution Plan (CTRL + L)
• Include Actual Execution Plan (CTRL + M)
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Fundamental Concepts

26. Graphical Show plan
We can Get execution plan for all type of queries
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Fundamental Concepts

27. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

28. System Stored Procedures
Have you used?
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29. System Stored Procedure
• SP_WHO
• SP_WHO2
• Custom SP_WHO2
• SP_LOCK
• SP_MONITOR
• SP_SPACEUSED
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30. DBCC Commands
Have you used?
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31. DBCC
• DBCC means Database Console Command
• Grouped into following categories
• Maintenance
• Miscellaneous
• Informational
• Validation
• During the Maintenance Plan almost every DBA will use this DBCC
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Fundamental Concepts

32. DBCC
OR
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Fundamental Concepts
Internal Database Snapshot
Exclusive DB Lock for Allocation checks & Catalogs
&
Shared Table locks for table checks
• DBCC CHECKDB
• DBCC CHECKALLOC
• DBCC CHECKTABLE
• DBCC CHECKCATALOG
• DBCC CHECKFILEGROUP

33. DBCC WITH DATABASE SNAPSHOT - Exclusions
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Snapshot not created for
below conditions
• Master database
• Single-user mode
• Read-only database
• Emergency mode
• Tempdb

34. DBCC
• Some of the DBCC Commands
• DBCC SQLPERF (logspace)
• DBCC SHOWFILESTATS
• DBCC CHECKCATALOG
• DBCC CHECKCONSTRAINTS
• DBCC CHECKALLOC
• DBCC CHECKTABLE(tablename)
• DBCC CHECKIDENT(tablename)
• DBCC DBREINDEX(tablename)
• DBCC INPUTBUFFER(sessionid)
• DBCC SHRINKFILE(file_id)
• DBCC TRACESTATUS
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Fundamental Concepts

35. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

36. Built-in Functions
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

37. Built-In Functions
• Built-In functions are installed by default.
• Helps getting system information.
• Some of the Built-In Functions
• @@io_busy – It will show I/O processing time in milliseconds
• @@cpu_busy -- It will show CPU processing time in milliseconds
• @@connections -- It will return no of connections/attempted connections
• @@idle – It will return SQL Server idle time in milliseconds
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38. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

39. Trace Flags
Have you used?
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Fundamental Concepts

40. Trace Flags
• Frequently used to diagnose performance issues
• Debug stored procedures or complex computer systems.
• Trace flags are valuable tools as they allow DBA to enable or disable a
database function temporarily.
• Once a trace flag is turned ON, manual turn OFF or restart SQL Server.
• -TXXXX can be used as startup parameter to enable trace when SS starts.
• sysadmin fixed server role permission required.
For full list of Trace flags.
http://technet.Microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188396.aspx
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Fundamental Concepts

41. OTHER TOOLS
Any guess?
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Fundamental Concepts

42. Other Monitoring Tools
• Error Logs
• Windows
• Applications
• SQL Server
• Security
• Setup
• System
• DTA (Database Engine Tuning Advisor)
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Fundamental Concepts

43. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

44. Exploring STATISTICS IO Output
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Fundamental Concepts

45. Exploring STATISTICS IO Output
• STATISTICS IO - detailed information about the impact of the Query.
• Scan Counts
• Logical Reads
• Physical Reads
• Read-ahead reads
• LOB logical reads
• LOB Physical reads
• LOB Read-ahead reads
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Fundamental Concepts

46. Exploring STATISTICS IO output
• Statistics IO can be set as an option while you execute the query.
• Message displayed in results pane.
• Cost of the query in terms of
• physical reads from the disk and
• logical reads from the cache
• KEY WORD
• SET STATISTICS IO ON
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Fundamental Concepts

47. STATISTICS IO explained
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Fundamental Concepts
Scan Count (1)
• Optimizer has chosen an execution plan.
• This number will be same until you change the query.
Logical Reads (1500)
• Actual number of page reads from cache.
• Will not change unless there is a change in query structure or index used in
the table

48. STATISTICS IO explained
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Fundamental Concepts
• Physical Reads ( 2576)
• Number of pages actually read from the disk directly.
• Reads from disk first time and use the page in cache for next time.
• Read-ahead reads (0)
• Total physical reads were satisfied by SQL Servers ‘Read-ahead’ mechanism.
• Fluctuates, as pages are swapped in/out of memory.
• Index fragmentation will affect this number.

49. STATISTICS IO explained
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• LOB Logical Reads (0)
• Count based on text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max) and varbinary(max) data type.
• Attention required like the Logical Reads.
• LOB Physical Reads (0)
• Physical reads of same data type.
• LOB Read-Ahead Reads (0)
• Number of physical reads satisfied by the Read-Ahead mechanism

50. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

51. Identifying Performance Problems
with Profiler data
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Fundamental Concepts

52. Identifying Performance Problems with Profiler data
• SQL Server Profiler helps to find the
exact problem in the database.
• Performance will vary depending
on the user activity.
• SSP - Highly recommend for DBA to
monitor the performance
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Fundamental Concepts

53. Identifying Performance Problems with Profiler data
• Major functions of SSP
• Creating trace
• Watching trace
• Storing trace
• Replaying trace
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Fundamental Concepts

54. DEMO
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Fundamental Concepts

55. Review
Monitoring Tools
SQL Trace
SQL Server Profiler
Distributed Replay Utility
SQL Server Management
Studio Activity Monitor
SQL Server Management
Studio Graphical Show plan
Stored procedures
Database Console Commands
(DBCC)
Built-in functions
Trace flags
STATISTICS IO
Performance Problems with Profiler data
Creating trace
Watching trace
Storing trace
Replaying trace
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Fundamental Concepts

56. Q & A
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Fundamental Concepts

57. ®
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