Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Bible

Summary

You can never become too good at performance tuning and optimization, and that skill is always in high demand because it requires a knowledge of so many different parts of the database engine.

SQL Server Management Studio does a good job at exposing execution plan internals, which allows you to dig deeply into the inner workings of the plan the Optimizer creates. Getting a feel for the logic behind the different tasks that an execution plan involves, coupled with the logic used behind these operations, is a huge step toward being a well-rounded PTO professional.

This chapter covered a small set of basics that you should be familiar with for tuning database systems. The more exposure you have, and the more frequently you work with execution plans and tuning queries, the better you prepare yourself for solving your company's performance problems when they crop up — and performance problems always happen.

The next chapter transitions into the whys and wherefores of query execution plans and how to manipulate them with indexes — an execution plan one-two punch.