Conor Cunningham will give an overview of the architectural design of the SQL Server Query Optimizer.  Topics covered include relational algebra representations, tree formats, the search strategy, rules, properties, and cardinality and cost estimation.  If you want to get started learning the “why”  behind how your query plan gets determined, this is the (sanitized) whiteboard talk I give to new employees working on the SQL Server QP on their first day.

Speaker bio

Conor Cunningham is a Principal Software Architect at Microsoft on the SQL Server Query Processor Team. He's worked on database technologies for Microsoft for over 10 years and is holds numerous patents related to Query Optimization and Query Processing. Conor is the author of a number of peer-reviewed articles on query optimization techniques. Recently, he authored a chapter for the book "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals" on how the Query Optimizer works. He publishes a blog called "Conor vs. SQL" (http://blogs.msdn.com/conor_cunningham_msft/default.aspx) where he answers questions about databases.