Oracle SQL Profiler – Need, Advantages and Best Practices

In this tutorial, we will see about the SQL Profiler. We will start from the basic definitions and then move on to the internal working and functionalities of the Profiler.

Let us now try to understand the Profiler in detail.

What is SQL Profiler?

SQL Profiler is a tracing tool which was inbuilt in the SQL servers. It helps to trace down the operations and queries being done on the database and helps to access the efficiency of the system.

The Profiler was put up and introduced by Microsoft to help the DBA’s to track down the running time and efficiency of the queries which are being done on the database.

It runs on the machine on which the query is being fired while the DBA’s insisted that the system should enable speed checks on the client-side.

Profiler follows two major steps to function:

1. Trace

The Profiler keeps a track of all the operations being done on the database and saves them.

It can also record the time taken by the system to execute and complete any operation.

2. Replay

The profiler can replay any past activity on the database. With help of this, the DBAs can understand the in-depth slowdowns which are present in the system.

With the help of Profiler, the DBAs can access the system and study all the aspects of execution.

The SQL profiler is an independent application and could be put up on the system as well.

It acts as a dashboard for the DBAs to analyze and understand the aspects of the functionality of a database and the operations being done on it.

Why do we use SQL Profiler?

SQL Profiler comes to use when we need to track down the efficiency of any application which uses SQL for its database queries.

As database access takes a lot of time in almost all applications and thus acting as a drawback.

SQL Profiler helps us understand how long our queries take to execute and how the efficiency is increasing exponentially to fit the requirements of our application.

With the profiler we can get the following details in one click:

• The average time of execution of any query.
• A total number of calls on a database.
• The number of times a query is executing successfully.
• The number of requests made every minute.

Developer Practices to use SQL Profiler

Some of the practices followed by DBAs while using SQL Profiler are as follows:

1. Always run the profiler on a remote system to avoid increased computational and memory cost.

2. Create and save templates which you require frequently to save time.

3. One should avoid tracing every single activity of the system.

4. Make sure to use filters to lower down the data on which you need an analysis report.

5. Avoid creating redundant events to track the activity of a single database.

Advantages of SQL Profiler

Some of the advantages of SQL Profiler are as follows:

1. Allows comparing the efficiency of the system with the set standards.

2. The easy access allows even non-administrative users to keep a track of system working efficiency.

3. Provides clarity about the system functions.

4. Provides methods to capture traces to compare future events.

5. Makes it easy to troubleshoot errors in the query or the database.

Summary

In this tutorial, we have seen the functionality of the SQL Profiler.

The SQL Profiler is now deprecated by Microsoft as it works on the machine and not on the server.

We have plenty of standalone software available on the web to function the same way despite how they operate on the server-side.

Although Profiler is a great tool for testing systems while in the development state.

The use of profiler is avoided when the database is sent to production as the system becomes heavy and computational costs increase.