1. Sponsored by: Professional Association for SQL Server SQL Server Performance Tools Cindy Gross, Microsoft Dedicated Support Engineer and Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) – SQL Server 2008 http://blogs.msdn.com/cindygross

2. Cindy Gross Dedicated Support Engineer Microsoft’s Premier Field Engineering Team Boise, ID Microsoft Certified Master : SQL Server Cindy.Gross@Microsoft.com http://blogs.msdn.com/cindygross

3. The Microsoft Certified Master program for SQL Server is the deepest technical certification available from Microsoft, validating and recognizing the top SQL Server talent in the world To achieve this certification, candidates must pass the following two exams in the following sequence: Exam 88-970: “SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Knowledge Exam” (4 hours) Exam 88-971: “SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Lab Exam” (6 hours) To achieve this certification, candidates must pass the following two exams in the following sequence: Exam 88-970: “SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Knowledge Exam” (4 hours) Exam 88-971: “SQL Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Master: Lab Exam” (6 hours) Designed for the real-world demands of top-tier SQL Server professionals, find out more about the new program requirements for MCM: SQL Server 2008 by visiting: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/master-sql-path.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/master-sql-path.aspx

4. Performance Tools - Agenda Methodology SQLDiag / PSSDiag SQLNexus Other Tools References

5. Methodology per SQL Server 2008 Internals and TroubleshootingSQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting Know your SLAs Define the problem and exit criteria Understand baselines Gather data Analyze data Test potential solutions Post Mortem Refine solution Update standards/best practices, apply to other systems

6. Gather Data

7. Why Gather Data? Save baselines Compare performance before and after coding, index, or hardware changes Save off SQL Server configuration information Gather information to troubleshoot various problems – SQLDiag is good for “something is slow” type issues

8. SQLDiag / PSSDiag Myths It’s too heavy It doesn’t capture what I need Just use the individual tools SQLDiag/PSSDiag are totally different

9. SQLDiag Ships with SQL Server Can be made into a service and/or scheduled With /X gathers a snapshot: evt/err logs, configs Else gathers snapshot + PerfMon + Profiler Controlled by XML files – edit with true/false

10. PSSDiag Wrapper around SQLDiag + Custom Diags Examples: DMV information, clone db, msdb backup, PerfStats PerfStats Controlled by the same XML file as SQLDiag Usually has custom collectors bundled with it

11. Custom Collectors Example from PerfStats download: SQLDiagPerfStats_Detailed_Trace2008.XMLPerfStats

12. SQLDiag Configuration Demo Open dos-prompt with “run as administrator” Example location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn Run with /X for snapshot and to generate XML files Review SD_Detailed.XML Edit and save to a new file, pass with /I to SQLDiag SQLDiag creates a server-side Profiler trace

13. Best Practices – Gathering Data

14. Best Practices - Planning Know your goal If collecting for a long time, collect fewer/less detailed events Be prepared for multiple iterations, get more detailed once you narrow it down

15. Best Practices - Output Few (one) traces at a time. Avoid the GUI, SQLDiag uses server side. 929728929728 Trace to local disk with write cache, never to a network share. 307786307786 Never trace to UNC path, even if UNC points to local disk. Use fastest available volume not already used by data or log files. Avoid RAID-5 (write intensive). Whether the trace impacts instance perf can depend on disk speed. Test in QA environment or during non-peak hours.

16. Best Practices - Collection Avoid high frequency events like Object:Opened, Lock:Acquired/Released, etc. Default to batch-level, not statement-level. Filtering reduces file size and I/O cost of tracing but increases CPU cost. Try to filter on integer column (dbid, duration, etc) instead of a text column (database name, textdata, etc) and only when filter removes >10% of events.

17. Best Practices - Collection No real value in eliminating rare but high-value events (e.g. Hash Warning, Exception, Data File Auto Grow, etc). Events that greatly impact trace size: SQL:StmtCompleted SP:StmtCompleted Degree of Parallelism Lock:Timeout Show Plan Statistics SQL:BatchStarting RPC:Starting

18. Best Practices – Performance Events All the Showplan events have high overhead and should be used only for a short time Actual plans for most uses: Showplan Statistics Profile or Showplan XML Statistics Profile Estimated plans for when queries never seem to complete: Showplan All or Showplan XML Text versions are subsets: no rows, execs, etc. Non-XML will be deprecated

19. PerfMon – Basic Counters Logical disk –Avg disk sec/read < 10-20ms, log sec/write < 3-5ms –Disk reads/sec, Disk writes/sec Memory - Available MBytes MSSQL Buffer Manager - Page Life Expectancy MSSQL Databases - Active Transactions, Backup/Restore Throughput/sec, Repl. Pending Xacts, Repl. Trans. Rate, Transactions/sec MSSQL Memory Manager - Total Server Memory, Target Server Memory MSSQL Plan Cache - Cache Hit Ratio (all instances) MSSQL Wait Statistics - (all) Process - % Processor Time (all instances) Processor - % Processor Time (all instances)

20. Analyze Data

21. SQL Nexus Download Nexus from Codeplex.comCodeplex.com Install RML toolsRML Optimize your load: Pre-size your Nexus db, use simple recovery, set autogrow ALTER DATABASE [NexusAdvWorks] SET RECOVERY SIMPLE WITH NO_WAIT ALTER DATABASE [NexusAdvWorks] MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'NexusAdvWorks', SIZE = 100MB, FILEGROWTH = 10MB ) ALTER DATABASE [NexusAdvWorks] MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'NexusAdvWorks_log', SIZE = 100MB ) Import your SQLDiag + PerfStats output Analyze your Data Repeat

22. SQL Nexus Demo Show import options Review available reports Narrow down the problem Find your bottlenecks and worst performing queries Gather more detailed data for problem areas

23. Additional Data Gathering

24. Profiler Demo Show Showplan output options Show Export feature

25. XEvents New in 2008, SSMS GUI in Denali Lighter weight than SQL Profiler / SQL Trace Using SQL Server Extended Events http://blogs.msdn.com/b/extended_events/Using SQL Server Extended Events http://blogs.msdn.com/b/extended_events/

26. Other Tools Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) RML Utilities – Readtrace, Ostress, ORCARML Utilities SQLIO – disk subsystem performanceSQLIO SQLIOSim – data correctness, ships with SQL 2008+SQLIOSim StorPort tracing enhancementsStorPort

27. References Waits and Queues White PaperWaits and Queues PerfStats DownloadPerfStats SQLDiag Parameters/UsageSQLDiag

28. Thank you to our sponsor Professional Association for SQL Server

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