The most powerful tool when tuning a single query or a single batch is the execution plan. By analyzing the execution plan of a query, you can learn all you need to know about how the query processor chose to execute the query, what causes the execution to take so long, and what you can do in order to make it run faster.
But there are several common pitfalls that you should be aware of when analyzing an execution plan. These pitfalls can be very misleading, and they might cause you to spend your tuning effort in the wrong direction. By understanding these pitfalls and avoiding them, you can save a lot of time and effort, and you can get your query to run faster - faster…