I want to know if it's possible to profile my web application when it's hitting a database on a SQL Server Express server with ANTS profiler.
Out of the box, I'm not able to. It's complaining about:
No event provider could be located for the SQL server instance 'SQLEXPRESS'
Has anyone been able to get around this, or do I have to upgrade my sql server?
Red Gate have just open an Early Access Program (EAP) for ANTS Performance Profiler. One of the new features is the ability to profile any SQL or Oracle server type, including SQL Server Express.
The EAP page is here: http://help.red-gate.com/help/ANTSPerformanceProfiler/download_eap.html
The SQL/Oracle servers can also be remote - previously the database server had to be on the same machine as the application that was being profiled.