RML tools - The old pssdiag with a new look...

Ken Henderson created the pssdiag utility for SQL Server in the 8.0 release. Information for that tool is located here. (I really miss chatting with Ken, by the way). For SQL Server 2005, Ken added this as mostly a command line utility but baked into the product; the previous version was a download. Now the Microsoft SQL Server support team, probably the escalation bunch that works out of the Las Colinas office, came up with the RML, or Replay Markup Language, Utilities for SQL Server. This appears to be essentially a mature version of those early releases of pssdiag. They have added a GUI for ease of use, and have incorporated reporting features for it as well.

From their website [1], the RML utilities perform the following:

• You can determine the application, the database, the SQL Server login, or the query that is using the most resources.
• You can determine whether the execution plan for a batch is changed when you capture the trace for the batch. Additionally, you can use the RML Utilities for SQL Server to determine how SQL Server performs each of these execution plans.
• You can determine the queries that are running slower than before.

...you can use this technique to test how SQL Server behaves after you do the following:

• You install a SQL Server service pack.
• You install a SQL Server hotfix.
• You update a stored procedure or a function.
• You update an index or create an index.

If you have seen some of my previous blogs, this tool will serve as the reporting mechanism for the trace replays that you have performed. While it is not the best that I have seen (SQL Rx tool is very rich), and will require a bit of labor in plucking what you need, this tool is an excellent way to transform trace replays to reports for research, analysis, and comparison.  I will be doing a quick series of blogs using this tool coupled with Scalability's Upgrade Assistant. Together these are some very powerful tools for digging in to SQL Server to find problem queries and procedures.

Lee

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Hey buddy. Might wanna check out these blogs before using that bat on your SQL Server.

1. Microsoft, 2008. Retrieved on 1/15/2009 from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944837.