Adaptive Query Processing - Adaptive Joins - Plan resue - 3

Continuing on the series on Adaptive Query Processing covered over here, this post would cover what happens to adaptive joins when plans are reused.

To give a little bit of context to the post, the earlier posts in the series explained how SQL Server 2017's Adaptive joins made it possible for SQL Server to switch between nested loop join and hash join in query plan during runtime depending upon the number of rows returned by one of the joining tables. "Adaptive join threshold" is a row count threshold used to decide whether to go for Nested loop join or hash join.
So, the question is what happens when the query plan is reused? Does the Query plan dynamically switch between the nested loop and hash join when the query plan is reused or does it just go with the last choice? What is the role of "Adaptive join threshold" when the plan is reused? To check it out, let's test it

DBCC FREEPROCCACHE

EXECUTE sp_executesql

N'SELECT [fo].[Order Key], [si].[Lead Time Days], [fo].[Quantity]

FROM [Fact].[Order] AS [fo]

INNER JOIN [Dimension].[Stock Item] AS [si]

ON [fo].[Stock Item Key] = [si].[Stock Item Key]

WHERE [fo].[Quantity] = @quantity', N'@quantity int',@quantity = 360

EXECUTE sp_executesql

N'SELECT [fo].[Order Key], [si].[Lead Time Days], [fo].[Quantity]

FROM [Fact].[Order] AS [fo]

INNER JOIN [Dimension].[Stock Item] AS [si]

ON [fo].[Stock Item Key] = [si].[Stock Item Key]

WHERE [fo].[Quantity] = @quantity', N'@quantity int',@quantity = 130

Step 1: Clearing the cache

Step 2: Run the query using sp_executesql and pass the variable, so that plan is reused
Step 3: Run the same query with a different parameter value, so that the plan is reused with a different value.

Don't forget to turn on the Show query plan option to see the query plan.
Query plans for both the queries provided below

Both use Adaptive Joins which is a good news.

Now, let's compare the properties of Adaptive Join operator to understand more

First observation: Actual join type for both executions are different. So, Adaptive Join switches the join operator dynamically even when the plan is reused

Second Observation: Adaptive threshold of rows remains the same and this implies it is fixed at the compile time or when the plan was first generated. Hence "Estimated Join Type" also remains the same.

So, to summarize, Adaptive Join threshold is computed at the compile time. So, when the plans are reused, the same adaptive join threshold is used for all executions. However, Adaptive join still switches the join operator at each execution, using the adaptive join threshold calculated at the first time the plan was generated.

Adaptive Query Processing - Adaptive Joins - Plan resue - 3

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