This article gives you an overview of the SQL Server 2005 administrative tools, including:

Profiler enhancements

Database Tuning Advisor

Assisted editors

Profiler Enhancements

With SQL Server 2005, Profiler gets an overhaul as well. The new Profiler now supports the ability to trace both SSIS and Analysis Services commands. SQL Server 2000 was limited to tracing relational database calls only. By having these capabilities, you can use these traces to debug any problems you have in these additional components of SQL Server. Also, Performance Monitor correlation works with these new trace types.

Profiler allows you to save the trace file as XML. Furthermore, a traced Show Plan result can be saved as XML and then loaded into Management Studio for analysis. The Profiler is described in detail in Appendix A.

Database Tuning Advisor

Profiler also integrates with the new Database Tuning Advisor, which replaces the Index Tuning Wizard. The DTA has a rich, new interface and works with the newer features in SQL Server 2005; for instance, it will recommend partitioning your tables using the new table partitioning features in the database engine.

Assisted Editors

Management Studio contains new capabilities, called assisted editors, to make writing stored procedures, views, and functions easier. Instead of having to manually create the header information for these types of objects, you can use the assisted editors to quickly point and click to set information.