22-25 April 2026 
Benchmarking like a PRO
2017TL; DR
In this demo-intensive session you will discover how to capture a meaningful workload in production and how to replay it against your test system.
Session Details
Exciting times ahead! You bought a license for SQL Server 2016 and you are going to upgrade to the new shiny version of SQL Server on a beefy new machine!
Fantastic! Except that you have no idea how your application will work on the new version. There’s a new cardinality estimator in 2016: how will it affect performance? The new features in In-Memory OLTP and Columnstore Indexes look really promising, but how will your workload take advantage of these features?
The best way to know for sure is to conduct a benchmark and compare it to your current system.
In this demo-intensive session you will discover how to capture a meaningful workload in production and how to replay it against your test system. You will also learn which performance metrics to capture and compare, and which tools can help you in the task.
Fantastic! Except that you have no idea how your application will work on the new version. There’s a new cardinality estimator in 2016: how will it affect performance? The new features in In-Memory OLTP and Columnstore Indexes look really promising, but how will your workload take advantage of these features?
The best way to know for sure is to conduct a benchmark and compare it to your current system.
In this demo-intensive session you will discover how to capture a meaningful workload in production and how to replay it against your test system. You will also learn which performance metrics to capture and compare, and which tools can help you in the task.
3 things you'll get out of this session
Speakers
Gianluca Sartori's other proposed sessions for 2026
Babelfish: The SQL Server Killer? - 2026
Questioning My SQL Server Faith… So You Don’t Have To - 2026
Gianluca Sartori's previous sessions
Time Series with SQL Server 2022
SQL Server 2022 introduces new time series capabilities, that will allow us to to work with time series data in the same database that we use for all the rest of the data.
Join me to see what SQL Server 2022 brings to the table for time series data, how to use the new features and what are the opportunities and the limitations.
3 things you don’t want to store in a database (but sometimes have to)
Some types of data are a very bad fit for a database. Join me to see how to survive with a database full of data that should not be stored there. I will demonstrate how to deal with billions of rows of logs without trashing the database, how to store millions of pictures effectively and how to deal with dynamic attributes in a sensible way.
Using WorkloadTools to analyze your workload
In this session I will show you how to use WorkloadTools to connect to a SQL Server database, on-premises or in the cloud, and analyze all the queries that are run against it.
Baking Extended Events recipes without breaking a sweat
In this demo intensive session I will show you how to tackle the most challenging tasks with Extended Events without writing a single line of code.
Benchmarking in the Cloud
Join me in this session and learn how to capture a production workload, replay it to your cloud database and compare the performance. I will introduce you to the methodology and the tools to bring your database to the cloud without breaking a sweat.
SQL Server Infernals - A Beginner’s Guide to Worst Practices
When you're in a rush, following best practices is a luxury you may not be able to afford. What about just avoiding worst practices instead? Join me for this session and learn from my mistakes!
Simplifying XEvents Management with dbatools
Bye #TeamProfiler and hi #TeamXEvents with the power of dbatools