Thanks to Extended Events (XE), we have access to a guide of sorts that will help us better understand if our shiny new tool (automatic tuning) is operating as desired.
Automatic Tuning Monitoring and Diagnostics
Event Tracing for Windows Target
There are many useful targets within SQL Server’s Extended Events. Of all of the targets, the most daunting is probably the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) target. The ETW target represents doing something that is new for most DBAs which means spending a lot of time trying to learn the technology and figure out the little nuances and the difficulties that it can present.
Checking your Memory with XE
It is well known and understood that SQL Server requires a substantial amount of memory. SQL Server will also try to consume as much memory as possible from the available system memory – if you let it. Sometimes, there will be some contention / pressure with the memory.
Finding Application Session Settings
One of the underused troubleshooting and performance tuning techniques is to validate the application session settings. Things can work fabulous inside of SSMS, but run miserably inside the application.
Finding Installed Event Sessions
Get off that arctic island and warm up with a little XE fun. This script is quite simple but will show you what you may have out there on your servers. Once you see what is there, hopefully your curiosity will get a little piqued and you will want to learn a little more (there is more of that here on this site too).