Thursday 28 May 2015

Parameter Sniffing

A short reminder, again to get this fresh in my mind....

Parameter Sniffing is when a previously compiled execution plan is reused with different parameter values. This is by design and is generally good as we are saving time by not compiling a new plan. Occasionally though it can lead to suboptimal choices when the procedure is run again, with new parameter values.

If a procedure returns only 1 row with 1 parameter value and 1 million with a different parameter value then the optimal plans for retrieving those rows may be very different.
Here the retrieval of a million rows wold be done using the plan generated for 1 row.

2 ways around parameter sniffing are forcing a recompile (WITH RECOMPILE) in the procedure definition or using the OPTIMIZE FOR query hint.

Simple Talk : Parameter Sniffing
Brent Ozar : Parameter Sniffing
MSDN : Parameter Sniffing & Workarounds


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