Has anyone come across any good tools (preferably but not necessarily FOSS) that can read a SQL Server (2005/2008) trace file and execute the commands against another database. We are attempting to perform some performance testing on our SQL servers and would like to replicate an actual load.
I have come across but not yet used:
Preferably, the application would be able to use threading to mimic user connections and query execution on the SQL Server.
You can replay trace files directly in SQL Profiler, although I've only used it a couple of times for that, so I don't know what all of the limitations are on it.
You can replay a SQL Server Profiler trace against another server using the SQL Server Profiler itself.
See the following Microsoft Reference as a starting point.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189604.aspx
Quest Software also have a tool called Benchmark Factory that can be used to perform SQL Server load testing.
team system has an add-on that you can find on codeplex: It is called ->
Let me know if that works well for you.
One of the best tools is actually freely available from Microsoft. The RML Utilities are targeted at SQL2005 & SQL2008 and are specifically designed for this type of testing.
You can download the tools from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7EDFA95A-A32F-440F-A3A8-5160C8DBE926&displaylang=en
We have used them to solve several performance and locking issues.
Note: Capturing trace files using the SQL Profiler GUI can add to performance problems due to the way the GUI and Trace backend interact. The RML Utilites include a script that can capture traces directly from the SQL Server without using the GUI.