Starting Database Engine Tuning Advisor

You can start the Database Engine Tuning Advisor graphical user interface (GUI) in several different ways to support database tuning in a variety of scenarios. The different ways to start Database Engine Tuning Advisor include: from the Start menu, from the Tools menu in SQL Server Management Studio, from the Query Editor in SQL Server Management Studio, and from the Tools menu in SQL Server Profiler.

When you first start Database Engine Tuning Advisor, the application displays a Connect to Server dialog box where you can specify the SQL Server instance to which you want to connect. On first use, a user who is a member of the sysadmin fixed server role must start the application to initialize it. After initialization, users who are members of the db_owner fixed database role can use Database Engine Tuning Advisor to tune databases that they own. For more information about initializing Database Engine Tuning Advisor, see Initializing Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

Note

Do not start Database Engine Tuning Advisor when SQL Server is running in single-user mode. If you attempt to start it while the server is in single-user mode, an error will be returned and Database Engine Tuning Advisor will not start. For more information about single-user mode, see Starting SQL Server in Single-User Mode.

To start Database Engine Tuning Advisor from the Windows Start menu

  • On the Start menu, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server, point to Performance Tools, and then click Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

To start Database Engine Tuning Advisor in SQL Server Management Studio

  • On the SQL Server Management Studio Tools menu, click Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

To start Database Engine Tuning Advisor from the SQL Server Management Studio Query Editor

  1. Open a Transact-SQL script file in SQL Server Management Studio. See Editing Scripts and Files in SQL Server Management Studio.

  2. Select a query in the Transact-SQL script, or select the entire script, right-click the selection, and choose Analyze Query in Database Engine Tuning Advisor. The Database Engine Tuning Advisor GUI opens and imports the script as an XML file workload. You can specify a session name and tuning options to tune the selected Transact-SQL queries as your workload.

To start Database Engine Tuning Advisor in SQL Server Profiler

  • On the SQL Server Profiler Tools menu, click Database Engine Tuning Advisor.