Execution plans

Showplan Operator of the Week – SORT

Fabiano introduces another ShowPlan operator that is used to build a query plan, or perform an operation specified in the DML. Once again, Fabiano demonstrates why it is important to be aware of these operators when getting queries to perform well.

DMVs for Query Plan Metadata

Before you can tackle any performance issues with a working database, you need to know which queries to work on first: The ones that are taking the most time in total, and which are the most expensive in terms of cache, CPU and disk. Although SQL Server Management Studio can help, it isn't long before you need an armoury of DMVs to provide you the statistics to find the culprits.

Queries, Plans, and Indexes

Find indexes associated with queries and vice versa. Helps figure out what procedures are using indexes.