Using SQL Server Profiler

SQL Server Profile is a multi purpose tool that can be used for either logging/audited or for performance tuning. You use SQL Server Profiler to create a SQL Server trace.

SQL Server traces can be either saved to a file or to a table:

* If to a file, you will be creating a ".trc" file

* The .trc file can be created on any server anywhere on the network (i.e. it doesn't have to be local)

* If to a table, it can be a table on any database, even on a different database server

You can setup the trace to track events in one of two ways:

* You can pick from one of several pre-defined templates

* You can custom build a trace to log only what you want to log

If you start a trace, and find it has too many events being logged, one approach is to set a filter in the trace:

* Stop the trace.

* Execute sp_trace_setfilter

* Start the trace

Logging to a file has less impact on SQL Server performance than logging to a table.