Use this page of the SQL Server Upgrade Assistant UI to compare the trace output files collected from one instance of SQL Server 2005/2008 and one instance of SQL Server Code Name “Denali”.
If you are using multiple computers for the test, run Compare Traces on the baseline server. For more information, see Create a Multiple-Computer Test Environment.
Specifies the name of the baseline server and instance where the traces will be compared. By default this field contains the name of the local computer. To compare databases on a different server, specify the server name. For a named instance, specify servername\instancename.
Specify the type of connection to use to connect to SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. Windows Authentication is specified by default. If you specify SQL Server Authentication, enter the User name and Password for a SQL Server account that has permission to create and drop databases on the server.
Specify the full path of the SQL Server 2005/2008 trace output file. This is the trace output file from the BASELINE trace replay you performed earlier.
Upgrade Assistant stores the trace output file to the log directory where Upgrade Assistant is installed. Click Browse to locate the directory, or type the full path.
Specify the full path of the SQL Server Code Name “Denali” trace output file. This is the trace output file from the TEST trace replay you performed earlier.
Upgrade Assistant stores the trace output file to the log directory where the Upgrade Assistant is installed. Click Browse to locate the directory, or type the full path.
Compare the traces. This button is enabled when Server name, Authentication, SQL Server 2005/2008 trace file, and SQL Server Code Name “Denali” trace file are specified.
Results
Displays the progress as the trace output files are compared.
This step allows you to visualize differences between trace output files from SQL Server 2005/2008 and SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. Click Launch Viewer to view the replay differences. If you are using multiple computers for the test, view the replay differences on the baseline server. For more information, see Create a Multiple-Computer Test Environment. Figure 6 below is a sample screenshot of the replay difference viewer including descriptions on various parts of the viewer.
Figure 6 . Replay Difference Viewer
Notice that the cell in the grid that is highlighted is longer than will fit in the cell. The full text of the highlighted cell is displayed in the Data field below the grids. Also notice that the EventClass for the difference is the ReplayProvider. This means that when the replay provider tried to execute the DBCC command in the batch, DBCC returned an error. The text in the Data field indicates that the DBCC command was invalid. Since the batch executed successfully in the Baseline trace, this is a difference in the Denali version of DBCC.
The Jump To field allows you to enter a Difference Number to go to when the GO button is clicked. This allows you to pick up from where you left off when you restart an analysis session.
It’s not unusual for a single type of difference to cause hundreds of replay errors if it occurs in a statement that your application uses frequently. To avoid having to page through many occurrences of the same difference, you can set up a filter to get rid of differences that you have already analyzed. The filter box at the bottom of the screen allows you to set up filters, set filter options and saves or reloads a set of filters. Filters only operate on the EventClass and TextData columns of the difference grid. Filters are entered in standard .NET regular expression syntax in the Regex field. Any rows where the EventClass or TextData cells match the regular expression will be eliminated from the comparison results.
If the Auto-Escape option is checked, the regular expression entered in the Regex field will automatically have special characters escaped when it is added to the filter list. For example, in the screen shot below, DECLARE has a space as the last character so in the filter list it appears as “DECLARE\ “ .
The dropdown above the Add button allows you to select whether a filter applies to the Baseline trace, the Test trace, or Both traces.
Once the Regex, Auto-Escape, and trace selection parameters have been entered, click the Add button to add the filter to the list. Once the filter list is complete you can select the Use Filter option to enable filtering. As you navigate through the difference list, using the Next and Previous buttons, any differences that match one or more of the filters will be skipped. If you want to eliminate the filtered differences from the grids, the search button will go through all the differences and eliminate filtered difference from the list. For example, in figure 7, there were 13 differences before the Search button was clicked and now there are 8.
The Load Filters and Save Filters links can be used to save a list of filters to a file and load them again later.
Now that you have finished the Upgrade Assitant process, there are a few advanced topics to consider for future use. 11.0 Advanced Topics
Figure 7. Replay Difference Viewer with filter