What is query execution plan at a high level?

< 1 min read

Query execution plan is a visual representation of how the database executes a SQL query.
At a high level, it shows steps like table scans, index seeks, joins, and aggregations.
In one project, we reviewed the execution plan to identify why a report query was slow.
It helped us see that a full table scan was happening instead of an index seek.
We also identified expensive join operations consuming high cost percentage.
Based on the plan, the DBA added indexes and optimized join conditions.
It helps understand which part of the query consumes most resources.
Overall, it is a diagnostic tool to improve query performance.

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