When working with Extended Events (XEvents), there are times when a little more information is, well, helpful. You know you want to use XEvents to try and monitor for a specific thing to happen. But, sometimes, you don’t know if there is an event for that “thing”, or maybe you don’t know if there is a session already in place to do that specific task (or if it is even running). Or, maybe, you just need better information about the event to see what kind of payload is captured/delivered when it is fired.
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…
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