T-SQL Tuesday #146 – Upending Preconceived Notions

The first T-SQL Tuesday invitation post of 2022 comes from Andy Yun. Andy’s invitation asks to describe a time when you learned something new that then changed your mind on a particular topic. Check out the invitation post by clicking the T-SQL Tuesday logo below:

Kicking it Old School with SQL Profiler

Extended Events was released with SQL Server 2008. I wasn’t a Database Administrator back then which made it even more intimidating when using it for the first time. I knew how to use SQL Profiler and was sure that would be all I’d ever need. SQL Profiler was more familiar to me and those around me were comfortable with it as well. Extended Events was something new that was arguably unnecessary. Why spend time on this cumbersome Extended Events thing when I’m already content with using SQL Profiler?

What Changed My Mind

XEvent Profiler was launched with SQL Server Management Studio 17.3 and was a feature that lured me away from the dark side of SQL Profiler. With SSMS open, a view of events was only a few clicks away.

While I had dabbled with Extended Events from time to time over the years, seeing XEvent Profiler there at the bottom of Object Explorer made it more likely for me to experiment. It was time to come to grips with the fact that SQL Profiler is deprecated and Extended Events is here to stay.

In addition to being much easier on performance compared to SQL Profiler, there are also more helpful Extended Events resources to learn from since the first time you may have fired it up on your own. It’s just not as intimidating as it once was. If you were like me and said to yourself “I’ll never use this” after trying Extended Events years ago, take some time this week and give it another go. You might be surprised.

Thanks for reading!