This is a short look at a technique that I discovered recently in Management Studio (SSMS). The technique is to compare two graphical execution plans in the tool to understand what they are doing and how two different queries might affect a particular system, both with the image and with the properties’ data behind the graphical plan.
This is actually something that was added in SSMS v16, but I hadn’t upgraded until relatively recently, in the v18s. I tend to use older versions of SQL Server, so I have stuck with the version of SSMS that came with them. However,