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Causality Tracking with Extended Events

Chad Callihan puts on the lab coat and safety goggles:

Causality is defined as the relationship between cause and effect so it’s safe to say that “causality tracking” is an appropriate name.

When you have causality tracking turned on for an Extended Events session, you can follow along with how one event in SQL can lead to various other events. By following the initial attach_activity_id.guid that gets assigned, you can follow statements, waits, statistic changes, and more. It’s a great way to filter the flury of events occuring on your server and narrow your focus.

Read on to see what causality tracking does and how you can benefit from it.