Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying - Second Edition

By : Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud
Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying - Second Edition

By: Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud

Overview of this book

Data professionals seeking to excel in Transact-SQL (T-SQL) for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database often lack comprehensive resources. This updated second edition of Learn T-SQL Querying focuses on indexing queries and crafting elegant T-SQL code, catering to all data professionals seeking mastery in modern SQL Server versions and Azure SQL Database. Starting with query processing fundamentals, this book lays a solid foundation for writing performant T-SQL queries. You’ll explore the mechanics of the Query Optimizer and Query Execution Plans, learning how to analyze execution plans for insights into current performance and scalability. Through dynamic management views (DMVs) and dynamic management functions (DMFs), you’ll build diagnostic queries. This book thoroughly covers indexing for T-SQL performance and provides insights into SQL Server’s built-in tools for expedited resolution of query performance and scalability issues. Further, hands-on examples will guide you through implementing features such as avoiding UDF pitfalls, understanding predicate SARGability, Query Store, and Query Tuning Assistant. By the end of this book, you‘ll have developed the ability to identify query performance bottlenecks, recognize anti-patterns, and skillfully avoid such pitfalls.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Query Processing Fundamentals
4
Part 2: Dos and Don’ts of T-SQL
9
Part 3: Assembling Our Query Troubleshooting Toolbox

Summary

Hopefully, after reading this chapter, you have a good understanding of the various elements that make up a query execution plan in the SQL Database Engine. Nearly everything we need to understand and troubleshoot the performance of our T-SQL queries can be found somewhere in the plan, either in the visible part of the plan or in the Properties windows, which we can access by right-clicking the operators. In the next chapter and throughout the rest of this book, we will use query execution plans to illustrate various T-SQL patterns and anti-patterns so that we can identify and remediate them in our own code.