Question

I’m trying to figure out why a SQL Server stored procedure is executing slowly, so I’ve put in some crude timers, like this:

Create Procedure DoStuff
As Begin

    Declare @Stopwatch datetime 
    Set @Stopwatch=GetDate()

    Print char(13) + 'Task A'
    /* Perform Task A */
    Print DateDiff(ms, @Stopwatch, GetDate()); Set @Stopwatch = GetDate()

    Print char(13) + 'Task B'
    /* Perform Task B */
    Print DateDiff(ms, @Stopwatch, GetDate()); Set @Stopwatch = GetDate()

    Print char(13) + 'Task C'
    -- Perform Task C
    Print DateDiff(ms, @Stopwatch, GetDate()); Set @Stopwatch = GetDate()

End

Exec DoStuff

I’m getting something like this:

Task A
0

Task B
80

Task C
100

So I would think the procedure would take 180 ms to execute. However, the procedure takes 3000+ ms to execute; in Client Statistics, I get

Client processing time: 12
Total execution time: 3105
Wait time on server replies: 3093

What accounts for the extra ~2800 ms?

Answer 1

It is a crude way to check the individual times. A better way would be to run a trace in SQL Profiler and monitor the SP:Completed and SP:StmtCompleted events.

SP:Completed is recorded when the sproc completes, giving the overall time.
SP:StmtCompleted is recorded when each statement within a sproc completes. So this will give you the times for each individual part of the sproc.

It’d be worth using this approach, rechecking the figures and then going from there.