The Cloud

It has been a minute since I gave much love or attention to Extended Events in Azure SQL DB. Things have changed a touch since then. We will see about some of those changes in a future article. As for this time, let’s focus on how to get a session in Azure SQL DB up and running really quick and easy.

Create a Session in Azure

I am going to keep this as easy as possible for creating a session and thus I will demonstrate how to do it from the GUI. And for those more in tune with their scripting side, there is a future article on that as well as a glimpse of a script near the end of this article.

Recall from the previous article that things in Azure SQL DB are different for Extended Events. XE is database scoped rather than server scoped (as is the case with your on-premises servers). Due to this change, finding the GUI for XE is a little different.

In order to find the GUI for XE, you must drill down into the database and then you will see “Extended Events.” (Side note, there is no XE Profiler for Azure SQL DB as of this writing.) If you right-click Sessions, you will get a menu with the option to create a New Session.

After clicking “New Session…” the familiar window for a new session will appear.

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The post Azure DB – A Quick Spelunk Into XEvents to Love appeared first on SQL XEvents.

In this article, I will be sharing a new query or two that I have used on more than one occasion to help track down the event(s) that I wanted to, at least, try while troubleshooting specific problems within the SQL Server Instance. I found these queries useful once again in a recent opportunity to help out some friends from the SQL Community. (Maybe, just maybe, these are really just a spin of other previously shared queries.) I will share the most recent experience in another follow-up post.

For the sake of posterity, I am also adding this to the MASSIVE collection of Extended Events articles.

Is There an Event that Contains pertinent Data?

In my previous article, I demonstrated how to find an event based solely on the name or description of the event. This is fantastic if the event name (or description) contains one of the magical words you have used. What if the event name or description has nothing to do with the terms you selected? Or, what if the data you seek may be attached to the event but wouldn’t necessarily stand out as a description for that event (by name or description details for that event)?

Now comes the more difficult task right? If the name or description of the event doesn’t relate to the search terms then you just might overlook a few events and be stuck…

The post 3 Highly Improved Help Queries for XEvents in Azure SQL appeared first on SQL XEvents.

Sometimes, this information is easy enough to find.  Sometimes, it is less than evident how to find the wanted information.  Some of the information may be visible through the GUI (if you are using SQL Server Management Studio 2012 or later), and sometimes it is just flat out easier to run a quick script.  Today, I would like to share a few quick scripts to help find some of the event information for SQL Azure when attempting to use XEvents. In the long run, these little helper queries will help make your life easier.

Does an Event Exist?

First let’s tackle the problem of discovery.  When we want to use XEvents to try and troubleshoot a problem (or to capture more information) in SQL Azure, it is really good to know if a relevant event exists.  There are many events that capture data for various different things within SQL Server. There are far fewer events available in SQL Azure (that is the subject of a different article).

That said, more events are being added on a regular basis.  More and more data is being made available to the DBA to help perform a better job and to help the DBA better understand what is really happening…

The post Top 3 Easy Help Queries for XEvents in Azure SQL appeared first on SQL XEvents.