02 September,2011 by Jack Vamvas
Question: How do I generate test data for SQL Server ? I don’t want to buy a benchmarking tool, but I require a representative test case with real SQL statements. How do the professional DBA’s capture SQL Server workloads for testing? This is part of acceptance testing
Answer: First, try to use real-world data, not artificial test data sets. You want a representative benchmark.
A one dimensional view of SQL Server can lead to vastly different results. Data that is not representative and workloads executed on the data can create a false sense of results.
Always remember that there is no substitute for a real-world test that simulates the actual behaviour of your production systems. However , this is not always possible.
There are several tools and methods for generating test data for SQL Server: