Database Engine Tuning Advisor How-to Topics

The performance of an enterprise database system can depend on its physical database design, which includes indexes, indexed views, and partitioning strategies. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provides the Database Engine Tuning Advisor, a tool you can use to tune the physical design of your database. Database Engine Tuning Advisor uses a representative workload in the form of a Transact-SQL script, a trace file, or a trace table, to analyze the effects of running that workload on databases that have been selected for tuning. After consuming the workload, Database Engine Tuning Advisor produces a recommended configuration of physical database design structures to improve performance for the workload that was tuned.

The topics in this section provide procedures for how to use both interfaces of the Database Engine Tuning Advisor: the graphical user interface (GUI) and the command-line utility program dta.exe. For an introduction to using this tool, see Database Engine Tuning Advisor Tutorial.

In This Section

Topic Description

How to: Create Workloads

Contains information about how to create workloads with SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Profiler.

How to: Tune a Database

Contains information about how to tune a database by using the Database Engine Tuning Advisor GUI and the command-line utility, dta.exe, to tune a database.

How to: View Tuning Output

Contains information about how to view tuning recommendations, summary, reports, and the tuning logs.

How to: Implement Tuning Recommendations

Contains information about how to implement tuning recommendations with the GUI and the command-line utility.

How to: Create XML Input Files

Contains information about how to create an XML input file.

How to: Perform Exploratory Analysis

Contains information about using the user-specified configuration feature of Database Engine Tuning Advisor to perform exploratory analysis.

How to: Review, Evaluate, and Clone Tuning Sessions

Contains information about how to use the Session Monitor in Database Engine Tuning Advisor GUI to review, evaluate, and clone tuning sessions.

See Also

Other Resources

Database Engine Tuning Advisor Reference
Tuning the Physical Database Design

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance