Category: Extended Events

Erin Stellato shows that SQL trace events map pretty closely to Extended Events:

Every time I talk about migrating from Profiler and Trace to Extended Events (XE), I seem to add something to my presentation.  It’s not always intentional, and I don’t know if it’s because I just can’t stop tweaking my demos and contents, or something else, but here in London at IEPTO2 this week, I added a query that helps you see what event in Extended Events is comparable to the event you’re used to using in Trace/Profiler.  While most of the events in XE have a name similar to the event in Trace (e.g. sp_statement_completed for SP:StmtCompleted), some mappings aren’t so intuitive.  For example, SP:Starting in Trace is module_start in XE, and SP:Completed in Trace is module_end in XE.  That’s not so bad, but if you’re ever monitoring file growths, note that the database_file_size_change event in XE is the event for the following four events in trace: Data File Auto Grow, Data File Auto Shrink, Log File Auto Grow, and Log File Auto Shrink.

This is a helpful query to keep around until you get really familiar with Extended Events.

Erin Stellato shows she can create an Extended Event as fast as a Profiler trace:

I haven’t gotten a ton of comments, but I did get a few (thank you to those have responded!), and I decided to take one of them and create a Trace and create an Extended Events session and see how long it took for each.  Jonathan has mentioned before that he can create an XE session as fast as a Trace, and I’ve been thinking that I can as well so I thought I’d test it.  It’s a straight-forward Trace versus Extended Events test.  Want to see what’s faster?  Watch the video here.

I love the “I would pop up the timer on the screen but I don’t know how to do that” bit; very Friday afternoonish.

The CSS SQL Server Engineers note that with SQL Server 2016, we’ll get faster Extended Events readers:

SQL Server 2016 improves the XEvent Linq reader scalability and performance.    The XEvent UI in SQL Server Management Studio uses the XEvent Linq reader to process the events for display.   Careful study of the XEvent Linq reader revealed opportunities for scalability and performance improvements.

I don’t know if this will push anyone in the direction of using Extended Events who isn’t already doing so, but I like the performance improvement here.

Dave Mason shares his story of moving from Profiler traces to Extended Events:

Thinking back, my initial reaction was probably something like “I don’t get it.”. XEvents just seemed like a new dog performing an old trick. Even though I concluded most of the SQL pros had already made the transition to Extended Events (XEvents), and that I’d be living in the past if I didn’t do the same, I continued to use Profiler. It’s too bad–my current employer at the time had SQL 2012 across the board. I missed a great opportunity there. Before I left that job, I stumbled upon this Paul Randal post. It helped me trouble-shoot a performance issue with a stored proc. “Ok, so there’s one thing XEvents can do that Profiler can’t do” I thought to myself. (Note: I don’t know if that’s a true sentiment or not–I never investigated further.) I also recall reading at least one of Jonathon Kehayias’ (b|t) posts about XEvents, but I don’t remember which one. Profiler would remain my go-to tool for the remainder of my time with that employer.

Read this in conjunction with Erin’s request.

Erin Stellato wants to know why you’re still using Profiler over Extended Events:

Extended Events *is* the replacement for Profiler/Trace; it’s not going away.  I really want people to be prepared for the time when Profiler and Trace are removed from the product.  And I want to provide feedback to the SQL Server product team to address limitations that people find in Extended Events.  If the feature is lacking something, we need to work together to create change.

Thanks in advance for your help, and if you haven’t tried XE, or are looking for a refresher, then please attend my webinar next Tuesday, April 5^th at 12PM EDT: Kicking and Screaming: Replacing Profiler with Extended Events.  I’d love to see you there and can help get you started with XE!

Leave a comment on Erin’s post and let her know.