Thank you All Who Participated

SQL Sentry and SQL Cruise would like to extend their thanks for those who were willing to share a bit of their pain with us in our first SQL Sentry Hairy Execution Plan Contest staged exclusively for our landlubber supporters of SQL Cruise.  It was a tough contest to judge with so many fine plans submitted (and by fine we really mean awful!)

In the end, we were left with two submissions that really stood out as utterly hairy and truly horrible in comparison to all the others.  The SQL Professionals responsible for those plans are:

• Alan Dykes
• Dvinge Morten

Unlike SQL Cruise where we take fifteen Cruisers on an adventure of their SQL Career there can be only one winner of our SQL Sentry Hairy Execution Plans Landlubber Contest and that honor goes to Dvinge Morten!

What Makes the Plan So Hairy?

The quotes from our judges sum up our reasoning for choosing him above all other entrants:

At first I thought Dvinge’s was just complex because there were a ton of cursors (most, if not all, probably shouldn’t be cursors). But the plan for the last Insert (sort by cost in the statements tree) is pretty impressive. 43 billion rows.

– Aaron Bertrand, SQL Sentry

I like the aspects of Dvinge’s because there were certain steps in his execution plan that showed off some of Plan Explorer Pro’s features a little better, but they were low-level things such as fatter lines on the plan view, stronger differences when flipping the lines between CPU and IO, and so forth.  Dvinge’s also showed off the other tabs in Plan Explorer Pro very nicely – plan tree, top operations, join diagram, etc.

– Kevin Kline, SQL Sentry

To the Victor Goes the Spoils

Dvinge will receive a single seat license of Plan Explorer Pro! This license prize has a $295 retail value. While the free version is great, the Pro version takes that greatness to a new level. Pro Version features include:

• A Multi-Tab Interface
• Wait Statistics Information
• Full Query Call Stack
• Open *.xdl Deadlock Files

Full details on these features are available at the SQL Server Plan Explorer website.
 

Do you want to get more SQL Server training with a side of free consulting, professional development, networking, and rejuvenation? Then join me and other leaders in the SQL Server Community (including Buck Woody, Aaron Bertrand, Kevin Kline, Stacia Misner, and Allen White) in 2013 for SQL Cruise 2013 where we will cover not just the technical side of SQL Server, Powershell, and Business Intelligence, but also the aspects of your skill set that make you a more valuable resource for your company and yourself.

Our On Board Hairy Execution Plan Contest Winner

Of course we also held this contest on board SQL Cruise Caribbean 2013 for those who joined us. There was a very audible groan when our winner’s plan came up on the screen and it was a near-unanimous winner as chosen by all Cruisers, Staff, and Technical Leads on SQL Cruise Caribbean 2013. That lucky winner was Carlos Chacon!

We’d like to congratulate Carlos and also would like to take time to direct you to his blog post about his experiences aboard his first SQL Cruise as well as let you know he is helping to organize the SQL Saturday Richmond Virginia event scheduled for March 09, 2013.