For this Critical Thinking Assignment, you will complete the hands-on activity, Project 7-1: Monitoring and Analyzing Performance,based on p. 272 of the MCSA guide to Microsoft SQL server 2012textbook.

For this hands-on project, you will use the SQL Server named instance SQLSERVERHOA, and the HandsOnOne database and tables you created in previous assignments. The objective of this project is to practice using Windows utilities and SQL Server management tools to monitor performance and diagnose query performance.

Using the Windows Performance Monitor utility, add a set of counters to the real-time performance monitor display that you consider most relevant to the performance of your SQL Server instance. Document this step by taking a screen shot of the real-time display.

In SQL Server Management Studio, construct a SQL query that uses a SELECT statement and a JOIN clause to query data from both the Customer and Address tables. Analyze the estimated execution plan.

Identify the most costly plan steps.

Are any of the steps that you identified in Step 2(a) a cause for concern? If so, explain.

Describe how the performance of the query could be improved, or explain why the query is already optimal.

Implement any changes identified in Step 2(c) and execute the query using the option Include Actual Execution Plan. Document this step by taking a screen shot of the actual execution plan.

Use SQL Server Profiler to capture a trace and execute the query again. Analyze the trace and determine how many milliseconds the query took to execute. Take a screen shot of the trace that shows the execution of your query to document this step.

Launch the Database Engine Tuning Advisor from Query Editor to analyze your query. Did the analysis generate any recommendations? Explain why or why not.