Once you’ve mastered how to use Perfmon to capture SQL Server performance data and using Profiler to capture query data, the next step is getting useful, actionable information from that pile o’ numbers.
Data Mining in Excel
The Microsoft SQL Server Data Mining team provides a free add-in for Excel that really helps:
- Tutorial on Data Mining Perfmon Results in the Cloud
- Download the Excel 2007 Table Analysis Tools for the Cloud
- Download the Excel 2007 Table Analysis Tools for SQL Server 2008
- Download the Excel 2007 Table Analysis Tools for SQL Server 2005
Here’s a five-minute video showing how to use it:
ClearTrace for Slicing & Dicing Profiler Traces
Bill Graziano’s ClearTrace is the easiest way to find the problem users, applications and queries in your trace files.
