How to improve the performance of a SQL query even after adding indexes? - sql

Question

I am trying to execute the following sql query but it takes 22 seconds to execute. the number of returned items is 554192. I need to make this faster and have already put indexes in all the tables involved.
SELECT mc.name AS MediaName,
lcc.name AS Country,
i.overridedate AS Date,
oi.rating,
bl1.firstname + ' ' + bl1.surname AS Byline,
b.id BatchNo,
i.numinbatch ItemNumberInBatch,
bah.changedatutc AS BatchDate,
pri.code AS IssueNo,
pri.name AS Issue,
lm.neptunemessageid AS MessageNo,
lmt.name AS MessageType,
bl2.firstname + ' ' + bl2.surname AS SourceFullName,
lst.name AS SourceTypeDesc
FROM profiles P
INNER JOIN profileresults PR
ON P.id = PR.profileid
INNER JOIN items i
ON PR.itemid = I.id
INNER JOIN batches b
ON b.id = i.batchid
INNER JOIN itemorganisations oi
ON i.id = oi.itemid
INNER JOIN lookup_mediachannels mc
ON i.mediachannelid = mc.id
LEFT OUTER JOIN lookup_cities lc
ON lc.id = mc.cityid
LEFT OUTER JOIN lookup_countries lcc
ON lcc.id = mc.countryid
LEFT OUTER JOIN itembylines ib
ON ib.itemid = i.id
LEFT OUTER JOIN bylines bl1
ON bl1.id = ib.bylineid
LEFT OUTER JOIN batchactionhistory bah
ON b.id = bah.batchid
INNER JOIN itemorganisationissues ioi
ON ioi.itemorganisationid = oi.id
INNER JOIN projectissues pri
ON pri.id = ioi.issueid
LEFT OUTER JOIN itemorganisationmessages iom
ON iom.itemorganisationid = oi.id
LEFT OUTER JOIN lookup_messages lm
ON iom.messageid = lm.id
LEFT OUTER JOIN lookup_messagetypes lmt
ON lmt.id = lm.messagetypeid
LEFT OUTER JOIN itemorganisationsources ios
ON ios.itemorganisationid = oi.id
LEFT OUTER JOIN bylines bl2
ON bl2.id = ios.bylineid
LEFT OUTER JOIN lookup_sourcetypes lst
ON lst.id = ios.sourcetypeid
WHERE p.id = #profileID
AND b.statusid IN ( 6, 7 )
AND bah.batchactionid = 6
AND i.statusid = 2
AND i.isrelevant = 1
when looking at the execution plan I can see an step which is costing 42%. Is there any way I could get this to a lower threshold or any way that I can improve the performance of the whole query.

Answer 1

Remove the profiles table as it is not needed and change the WHERE clause to
WHERE PR.profileid = #profileID
You have a left outer join on the batchactionhistory table but also have a condition in your WHERE clause which turns it back into an inner join. Change you code to this:
LEFT OUTER JOIN batchactionhistory bah
ON b.id = bah.batchid
AND bah.batchactionid = 6
You don't need the batches table as it is used to join other tables which could be joined directly and to show the id in you SELECT which is also available in other tables. Make the following changes:
i.batchidid AS BatchNo,
LEFT OUTER JOIN batchactionhistory bah
ON i.batchidid = bah.batchid
Are any of the fields that are used in joins or the WHERE clause from tables that contain large amounts of data but are not indexed. If so try adding an index on at time to the largest table.
Do you need every field in the result - if you could loose one or to you maybe could reduce the number of tables further.

Answer 2

First, if this is not a stored procedure, make it one. That's a lot of text for sql server to complile.
Next, my experience is that "worst practices" are occasionally a good idea. Specifically, I have been able to improve performance by splitting large queries into a couple or three small ones and assembling the results.
If this query is associated with a .net, coldfusion, java, etc application, you might be able to do the split/re-assemble in your application code. If not, a temporary table might come in handy.