If you were a DBA of SQL Server 2000, you’d be familiar with the frustration that encouraging developers to use SQL Profiler as part of performance testing meant you needed to grant the sysadmin privilages. Security best practises mean you should only grant users the minimum permissions needed, and certainly not everyone should be trusted with sysadmin privilages.
Well in SQL Server 2005 this problem has been solved. You can now give developers access to use SQL Profiler without having to make them a member of sysadmin.
To grant a permission to use SQL Profiler with a server, execute:
USE master;
GRANT ALTER TRACE TO [Username];
GRANT ALTER TRACE TO [Username];
Note that this is a system wide permission. You cannot grant the right only for a particular database.