To close out this month’s series on Extended Events we’ll look at the DDL Events for the Event Session DDL operations, and how those can be used to track changes to Event Sessions and determine all of the possible outputs that could exist from an Extended Event Session.  One of my least favorite quirks about [...]

One of the actions inside of Extended Events is the package0.callstack and the only description provided by sys.dm_xe_objects for the object is 16-frame call stack.  If you look back at The system_health Session blog post, you’ll notice that the package0.callstack Action has been added to a number of the Events that the PSS team thought [...]

While working on yesterday’s blog post The Future – fn_dblog() No More? Tracking Transaction Log Activity in Denali I did a quick Google search to find a specific blog post by Paul Randal to use it as a reference, and in the results returned another blog post titled, Investigating Multiple Transaction Log Files in SQL [...]

I bet that made you look didn’t it?  Worry not, fn_dblog() still exists in SQL Server Denali, and I plan on using it to validate the information being returned by a new Event in SQL Server Denali CTP1, sqlerver.transaction_log, which brings with it the ability to correlate specific transaction log entries to the operations that [...]

One of the biggest problems that I had with getting into Extended Events was mapping the Events available in Extended Events to the Events that I knew from SQL Trace.  With so many Events to choose from in Extended Events, and a different organization of the Events, it is really easy to get lost when [...]

In yesterday’s blog post A Look at Backup Internals and How to Track Backup and Restore Throughput (Part 1), we looked at what happens when we Backup a database in SQL Server.  Today, we are going to use the information we captured to perform some analysis of the Backup information in an attempt to find [...]

Today’s post is a continuation of yesterday’s post How Many Checkpoints are Issued During a Full Backup? and the investigation of Database Engine Internals with Extended Events.  In today’s post we’ll look at how Backup’s work inside of SQL Server and how to track the throughput of Backup and Restore operations.  This post is not [...]

This wasn’t my intended blog post for today, but last night a question came across #SQLHelp on Twitter from Varun (Twitter). #sqlhelp how many checkpoints are issued during a full backup? The question was answered by Robert Davis (Blog|Twitter) as: Just 1, at the very start. RT @1sql: #sqlhelp how many checkpoints are issued during [...]

The lack of SSMS support for Extended Events, coupled with the fact that a number of the existing Events in SQL Trace were not implemented in SQL Server 2008, has no doubt been a key factor in its slow adoption rate.  Since the release of SQL Server Denali CTP1, I have already seen a number [...]

Yesterday’s post, Targets Week – pair_matching, looked at the pair_matching Target in Extended Events and how it could be used to find unmatched Events.  Today’s post will cover the etw_classic_sync_target Target, which can be used to track Events starting in SQL Server, out to the Windows Server OS Kernel, and then back to the Event [...]

Yesterday’s post, Targets Week – synchronous_event_counter, looked at the counter Target in Extended Events and how it could be used to determine the number of Events a Event Session will generate without actually incurring the cost to collect and store the Events.  Today’s post is coming late, I know, but sometimes that’s just how the [...]

Yesterday’s post, Targets Week – Bucketizers, looked at the bucketizer Targets in Extended Events and how they can be used to simplify analysis and perform more targeted analysis based on their output.  Today’s post will be fairly short, by comparison to the previous posts, while we look at the synchronous_event_counter target, which can be used [...]

Yesterday’s post, Targets Week – asynchronous_file_target, looked at the asynchronous_file_target Target in Extended Events and how it outputs the raw Event data in an XML document.  Continuing with Targets week today, we’ll look at the bucketizer targets in Extended Events which can be used to group Events based on the Event data that is being [...]

Yesterday’s post, Targets Week – ring_buffer, looked at the ring_buffer Target in Extended Events and how it outputs the raw Event data in an XML document.  Today I’m going to go over the details of the other Target in Extended Events that captures raw Event data, the asynchronous_file_target. What is the asynchronous_file_target? The asynchronous_file_target holds [...]

Yesterdays post, Managing Event Sessions, showed how to manage Event Sessions inside the Extended Events framework in SQL Server. In today's post, we’ll take a look at how to find information about the defined Event Sessions that already exist inside a SQL Server using the Session Definition DMV’s and how to find information about the [...]

Yesterdays post, Querying the Extended Events Metadata, showed how to discover the objects available for use in Extended Events.  In today's post, we’ll take a look at the DDL Commands that are used to create and manage Event Sessions based on the objects available in the system.  Like other objects inside of SQL Server, there [...]

In yesterdays post, An Overview of Extended Events, I provided some of the necessary background for Extended Events that you need to understand to begin working with Extended Events in SQL Server.  After receiving some private feedback on the initial post, I have changed the post naming convention associated with the post to reflect “2 [...]

SQL Server Extended Events were first introduced in SQL Server 2008, and provided a new mechanism for capturing information about events inside the Database Engine that was both highly performant and highly configurable.  Designed from the ground up with performance as a primary focus, Extended Events may seem a bit odd at first look, especially [...]