Performance Monitoring and Tuning How-to Topics

There are a variety of tools and techniques that can be used to monitor Microsoft SQL Server. Understanding how to monitor SQL Server can help you:

Determine whether performance improvements can be made.
Determine user activity to find out what queries users are issuing and who is connecting to SQL Server.
Troubleshoot problems.
Test applications.

In This Section

This section contains information about how to use SQL Server performance monitoring and tuning tools as listed in the following table.

Topic	Description
Server Performance and Activity Monitoring How-to Topics	Contains information about using Microsoft Windows tools, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Trace, and SQL Server Profiler to capture information about SQL Server events to troubleshoot performance problems.
Database Engine Tuning Advisor How-to Topics	Contains information about how to use Database Engine Tuning Advisor to tune the physical SQL Server database design.
Execution Plan How-to Topics	Contains information about using the graphical Showplan feature of SQL Server Management Studio.