Query Analyzer Server Trace

In addition to the graphical query plan output, Query Analyzer also provides a Show Server Trace option. This option can be toggled on or off in the Query menu. When on, an additional Trace tab is displayed in the results panel. The Server Trace output displays information that is similar to what you would see in SQL Profiler, but only for the SQL being executed in the Query Anlyzer window. The trace output displays information for the SQL:StmtCompleted and SP:StmtCompleted event classes. The columns of information displayed include the Text, Duration, CPU, Reads, and Writes for each completed statement. An example of this output is shown in Figure 36.8.

Figure 36.8. Query Analyzer server trace output.

The Show Server Trace information is useful for identifying the actual query perfomance statistics, which can be compared to the estimated query cost to see if the optimizer is making accurate query cost estimates.