Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Each has its advantages and disadvantages. You can try and keep your most useful scripts in all three
locations. The challenge then is keeping them all synched with the latest version. Robocopy and a good
source code control system can really help.
PSSDiag
PSSDiag is a general-purpose data collection tool used by CSS to collect data from a customer's server.
If you are familiar with this, it is most likely because you called CSS with a server performance issue
and they asked you to use it to collect data. PSSDiag can be found by searching the web for the latest
download.
SQLDiag
SQLDiag is another CSS data collection tool, but this one is focused on collecting SQL Server statistics to
help a support engineer diagnose your SQL Server performance problem. SQLDiag can also be found by
searching the web for the latest download location.
BlockingScripts
This CSS tool is a set of scripts to help identify blocking issues. Check out the PSS SQL Server Engineers
Blog for the latest information on the new version called
Perf Stats Script
. A web search for SQL Blocking
Script should reveal the latest download location.
NetworkMonitorandNetcap
Network Monitor (Netmon) and the network monitor capture utility (Netcap) are tools for capturing
network traffic. Netmon includes both capture and analysis tools. Netcap is just a capture utility. Cap-
turing a network trace can be helpful when the issue might be a connection problem or an authentication
problem and it is not possible to see what is going on with the other SQL Server tools. The ability to cap-
ture a trace of every packet sent to and from the server over the network is an invaluable aid, although
interpreting the results can require a lot of time and a deep knowledge of network protocols. In many
cases there are protocol wizards built into Netmon that will help with interpreting network packets by
breaking down the raw data into the relevant data structures.
Windbg,ntsd,andcdb
Windbg, ntsd, and cdb are the Windows debuggers. These are hardcore code development debuggers,
and you wouldn't normally expect to hear anyone mention them in a discussion on SQL Server. However,
they can be extremely useful for diagnosing client-side performance issues where there is no low-level
tracing.
VisualStudio2005TeamEditionforDatabaseProfessionals
Sometimes also referred to as Data Dude, this is a new application life cycle tool to empower team devel-
opment of SQL Server. Anyone working on a production database should be using this, even if they are
not on a team. The basic product has enough cool features to make it a great addition for any DBA. The
team also recently released a cool suite of Power Tools that add some additional features. Keep an eye on
Gert Draper's blog (listed in the next section) for the latest breaking news on this tool.
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