Using Database Engine Tuning Advisor

You can access Database Engine Tuning Advisor at the command prompt by using the dta.exe file, or through the application's graphical user interface (GUI). The command-line utility lets you incorporate Database Engine Tuning Advisor functionality into scripts and software programs. The dta utility also takes XML input. The Database Engine Tuning Advisor GUI makes it easy to view existing tuning sessions tuning recommendations.

Note

Database Engine Tuning Advisor stores tuning session data and other information in the msdb database. Implement an appropriate backup strategy for the msdb database to avoid the risk of losing tuning session data.

The following sections contain conceptual information about using both user interfaces of Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

In This Section

Topic	Description
Initializing Database Engine Tuning Advisor	Contains information about how to initialize Database Engine Tuning Advisor immediately after installing Microsoft SQL Server 2005. A member of the sysadmin fixed server role must launch the application first before others can use it.
Determining Whether Events Can Be Tuned	Contains information about the types of events that Database Engine Tuning Advisor can tune.
Tuning a Database	Contains information about the overall process of tuning the physical database design and provides links to the how-to topics that describe each task.
Available Tuning Options	Contains information about all the tuning options that Database Engine Tuning Advisor provides, such as limiting the tuning time, the amount of space consumed by recommendations, and so on.
Choosing a Database Engine Tuning Advisor Report	Contains information about each type of analysis report that Database Engine Tuning Advisor generates after consuming a workload.
Reducing the Production Server Tuning Load	Contains information about using a test server to offload tuning overhead from the production server.
Tuning Multiple Databases	Contains information about how to use Database Engine Tuning Advisor to tune multiple databases.
Using an XML Input File for Tuning	Contains information about using an XML input file for tuning, including information about specifying hypothetical configurations for Database Engine Tuning Advisor to analyze.
Tuning Mode Precedence: When the dta Utility Overrides XML Tuning Input	Contains information about what tuning options take precedence over others.
Using Session Monitor to Evaluate Tuning Recommendations	Contains information about how to use Database Engine Tuning Advisor sessions to compare and evaluate tuning results.