Replaying Traces

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.

SQL Server Profiler features a multithreaded playback engine that can simulate user connections and SQL Server Authentication. Replay is useful to troubleshoot an application or process problem. When you have identified the problem and implemented corrections, run the trace that found the potential problem against the corrected application or process. Then, replay the original trace and compare results.

Trace replay supports debugging by using the Toggle Breakpoint and the Run to Cursor options on the SQL Server Profiler Replay menu. These options especially improve the analysis of long scripts because they can break the replay of the trace into short segments so they can be analyzed incrementally.

For information about the permissions required to replay traces, see Permissions Required to Run SQL Server Profiler.

In This Section

Topic	Description
Replay Requirements	Describes the events that must be included in a trace definition so that it can be replayed.
Replay Options	Describes the options you can set in the Replay Configuration dialog box of SQL Server Profiler.
Considerations for Replaying Traces	Describes trace events that can not be replayed and the effects on server performance of replaying traces.