SQL Server 2008 Question:

Extended Events are the enhanced event handling system in SQL Server. It is an architecture that is highly scalable, highly configurable. It allows the DBAs for collecting the required information, could it be little or much, for problem identification or problem trouble shooting.

Data collection which can output to an Event Tracing for Windows target is one of the key features of Extended Events. This allows the correlating data with the data collected from the corresponding operating system with the help of Event Tracing for Windows. Even the wait events could be correlated with the kernel EWT data. This process is done within a single view for isolating the waits for a specific reason.

The events are handled by an engine which is a services and objects collection which allows defining, process and managing event sessions, event data and event sessions respectively.