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Performance troubleshooting using tools in Lifecycle Services (LCS)

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This article describes how you can troubleshoot and mitigate performance issues using the tools available in Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS).

Overview

Common feedback from customers and partners has been that they are unable to successfully diagnose performance issues using the tools in LCS. We have addressed this feedback by creating a more reliable way to collect performance metrics on demand. This enables customers and partners to execute a predefined set of actions that can be used to mitigate issues in a sandbox or production environment. This feature queries SQL Server directly, so you get query store metrics in near real-time. We have also added an audit trail on the action performed so that you can easily determine who performed the action and when it was performed.

Details

All SQL performance tools in LCS are available under the SQL Insights tab on the Environment Monitoring page for a specific environment. The following tabs are available:

  • Live View – Shows executing statements and blocking statements. The current SQL Now page that shows performance issues will be replaced with Live View.

  • Queries – Shows a list of predefined queries that can be used to retrieve metrics on demand. Examples of queries include a current blocking tree, a list of active plan guides, and a list of most expensive queries.

    Important

    To help guarantee that the query results are returned instantaneously, most of the queries are run synchronously. However, if there is an ongoing performance issue, synchronous query execution might cause a time-out error. To address this issue, a new Use Fast Query option has been added. By default, this option is turned on for most queries. If you receive a time-out error after you run a query, turn the Use Fast Query option off, and then try to run the query again. The query will now run asynchronously.

  • Actions – Shows a list of predefined actions that should be taken to mitigate issues in the sandbox and production environments. Examples of actions include terminating a blocking statement. Any time that an action is performed, the environment history for an environment will show a record for the action performed. A history record is created only for actions and not when queries are executed.

  • Queries tab and Actions tab – For details about the queries that are shown on the Queries and Actions tabs, see the Query cookbook.

How do I use this feature?

  1. Go to your project in LCS and open the environment details page. Select the Environment Monitoring link in the Monitoring section. Select the SQL Insights tab to access this feature.
  2. You can navigate to each of the tabs (Live View, Queries, Actions) to view or query for more information.
  3. You have the option to search or export to Excel any of results from the query execution.
  4. After you have narrowed down the reason for the performance issue, you can use a predefined action to mitigate the issue.
  5. After an action is performed, an entry is made on the Environment History page, which shows the details of the action, the parameters that were passed in, a timestamp, and who triggered the action.

Sample flow

Scenario: Users report slow performance when using the system. One issue could be a blocking statement. Blocking by itself is typical in a healthy system and is only a problem when it becomes excessive or starts degrading business activities.

  1. Go to the Live View tab and check if there are any blocking statements. If there is a blocking statement, copy the blocking query ID.
  2. Open the Queries tab and select the Current Blocking Tree query. This will return the root blocker that is blocking the SQL operation.
  3. To resolve the issue, you can either let it run and clear naturally, or end the process for the lead blocker, which will roll work back. Typically, you should only end the lead blocker process if you think that it will not clear naturally (such as a bad query plan), or in situations where a critical process is unable to run and needs to complete immediately.
  4. Confirm that it's okay to terminate the statements that are currently being executed.
  5. Open the Actions tab and select the End SQL Process action and pass in the root blocker query ID. This will execute a query against the SQL database to terminate the blocking statement.
  6. Go to the Queries tab and run Current blocking query to verify if the blocking statement was terminated.
  7. You can also check the Environment History page to see details on what process was terminated.