Improving SQL Server Queries by Reading and Understanding Execution Plans

Performance tuning in SQL Server is not without its challenges, but understanding execution plans can help. Before it executes a query, SQL Server generates an execution plan. Some execution plans are trivial, such as returning all the rows from a single table. But when we go beyond simple cases, SQL Server generates a good enough execution plan to accomplish the work.

SQL Server will use the indexes you've created, the statistics on those indexes, as well as how you’re manipulating the data based on the query to determine that execution plan. The hardware and the amount of data determine how fast the query returns. If a query is performing poorly, there’s a lot within our control to improve performance. That’s why understanding the execution plan is so important for SQL Server query performance tuning.

In this on-demand webcast, you’ll learn how to:

• Use the tools in SQL Server to capture execution plans
• Read an execution plan and use that information to write better queries
• Understand the impact of outdated statistics, improper indexing and T-SQL anti-patterns that cause queries to run poorly
• Improve SQL Server query performance tuning

We’ll also work through remediation examples of performance killers, so you’ll gain the skills to attack poorly performing queries in your own environment. With the expert guidance in this session, you’ll master performance tuning in SQL Server.