Back to the future: SQL Profiler Trace Replay

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Are you familiar with Trace Replay feature SQL Profiler? It's not really popular but actually can do a lot for you.
Replay is the ability to save a trace and replay it later. This functionality lets you reproduce activity captured in a trace. When you create or edit a trace, you can save the trace to replay it later.
Replaying trace is useful when
- you need to troubleshoot production issues then you can run recorded trace against fixed application to make sure all bugs were fixed.
- you need to simulate production load on QA/dev environment for stress testing
- test new code that is written on development server by simulating real DML load.
The process of recording and replaying trace is really easy.
- Use preconfigured replay template (TSQL_Replay) because, if you do not capture all required data, SQL Server Profiler will not replay the trace (!)
- Save the trace using any format: table or trace file. If you want to use rollover files with limited size take into consideration the following:
* File name should not contain symbol '_', otherwise Profiler will not load all files when you open the files for replay
* Keep as less files as you can because I haven't found option to tell the profiler " Load all rollover files". It will ask you file after the file if you want to load next file and you will need to press ok.
- Open trace file on target server. If menu Replay items are disabled, this means that file is not completely loaded. Wait with patience.
- When you see that Replay Menu items got enabled, choose Start and here you go.
- Database matching can be done on databaseid but, in most cases, those are different and profiler will match using databasename

Make sure all logins, users , permissions etc. must be the same on source and target servers

Good luck.

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