First published on MSDN on Apr 09, 2018
Authored by rajsell@microsoft.com
Overview
Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) is a new A/B testing solution for SQL Server upgrades. It will assist in evaluating a targeted version of SQL for a given workload. Customers who are upgrading from previous SQL Server versions (SQL Server 2005 and above) to any new version of the SQL Server will be able to use these analysis metrics provided, such as queries that have compatibility errors, degraded queries, query plans, and other workload comparison data, to help them build higher confidence, making it a successful upgrade experience.
What's new in v2.5?
The v2.5 release of DEA has the following improvements
- Fixes to allow analysis to run successfully with very large trace files
- Optimized the list of events that we capture that results in reduced trace file sizes
- Query hash field has been added to the report page
- Updates to telemetry and feedback collection in order to comply with GDPR regulation
- Accessibility fixes
In addition to the above, we have also made few stability improvements to the tool.
Tutorials
The following pages gives a step by step guide to leverage DEA for workload comparison
Installation
You can install from Microsoft Download Center . Run ‘DatabaseExperimentationAssistant.exe’ to install Database Experimentation Assistant tool.
Existing features
Supported sources and target versions
Source: SQL Server 2005 and above
Target: SQL Server 2005 and above
Analysis: SQL Server 2008 and above
How to contact DEA team?
Customers can submit feedback through a simple UI in DEA tool or send an email to deafeedback@microsoft.com .