When I was writing the script shared in my last post Identify the (Top 20) most expensive queries across your SQL Server using Query Store a question crossed my mind:

Query Store is a configuration that is enabled per database, and the plans and stats for queries executed in that database are stored in the database itself. So what does query store do when a query spans more than one database?

Does it record the execution stats in all databases involved or does it store them in one based on some criteria (e.g. the one where the most work occurs)? Or does it somehow proportion them out between the databases?

This was relevant as it crossed my mind that if it records them in multiple database then my query in the above post could be double counting.

Time to test and find out.

I created three databases, Fred, Bert and Ernie. Then a table called Fred in database Fred, and a table called Bert in database Bert. In table Fred I created a bunch of records, then in table Bert I created a much bigger bunch of records:

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS Fred;
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS Bert;
DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS Ernie;

CREATE DATABASE Fred;
CREATE DATABASE Bert;
CREATE DATABASE Ernie;

USE Fred;
CREATE TABLE dbo.Fred(Id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED, FredText NVARCHAR(500));

INSERT INTO dbo.Fred(FredText)
SELECT a.name + b.name
FROM sys.objects a, sys.objects b;

USE Bert;
CREATE TABLE dbo.Bert(Id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED, BertText NVARCHAR(500));

INSERT INTO dbo.Bert(BertText)
SELECT a.name + b.name + c.name 
FROM sys.objects a, sys.objects b, sys.objects c;

Then I turned on Query Store for all three databases:

USE MASTER;
ALTER DATABASE Fred SET query_store = ON;
ALTER DATABASE Bert SET query_store = ON;
ALTER DATABASE Ernie SET query_store = ON;

Once that was done I concocted a horrible query that was bound to be horrendously slow – so I knew it would be easy to find when I queried the Query Store runtime stats:

SET STATISTICS IO ON

SELECT TOP 100000 *
FROM Fred.dbo.Fred f
INNER JOIN Bert.dbo.Bert b
   ON b.BertText LIKE  '%' + f.FredText + '%';

I turned STATISTICS IO on so I could see how much work was happening in each database.

I ran the query first in a query window pointing at the Fred database, then I ran my query store query from the previous post (Capture the most expensive queries across your SQL Server using Query Store) to see what had been captured. I made it slightly easier for myself by adding an additional where clause to the cursor so that it only looked at these databases:

--Cursor to step through the databases
DECLARE curDatabases CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR
SELECT [name]
FROM sys.databases 
WHERE is_query_store_on = 1
AND name IN ('Fred','Bert','Ernie');

I cleared down Query Store for all the databases:

USE MASTER;
ALTER DATABASE Fred SET QUERY_STORE CLEAR;
ALTER DATABASE Bert SET QUERY_STORE CLEAR;
ALTER DATABASE Ernie SET QUERY_STORE CLEAR;

Then I repeated these steps for Bert and Ernie.

The Statistics IO for the query (regardless of which database context I had set) was as follows:
Table ‘Bert’. Scan count 24, logical reads 5095742, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.
Table ‘Fred’. Scan count 25, logical reads 50, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.
Table ‘Worktable’. Scan count 0, logical reads 0, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

So you can see most of the work occurs in the Bert database, a little in Fred, and none in Ernie.

Now let’s see what query store captured when I ran the query pointing at database Fred:

And pointing at database Bert:

And pointing at database Ernie:

You can see that the figures get recorded against whichever database you are pointing at – regardless of where the data being accessed resides. I left the “TotalLogicalReads %” in the above screen shots so you can see I’m not hiding anything.

This has a few implications. First, I’m happy because it means my “Expensive queries” script isn’t double counting.

Second though, as you can’t turn on query store on in any of the system databases, you won’t be able to capture details for any queries executed with those as the context. That includes ad-hoc queries where the user may connect to master, but execute queries against your other databases.

Fortunately (because Query Store would be pretty pointless if it did) this doesn’t apply to stored procedures.

I’m going to wrap my horrible query into a stored procedure, and deploy it into database Ernie:

USE Ernie;
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.Horrible
AS
BEGIN
   SELECT TOP 100000 *
   FROM Fred.dbo.Fred f
   INNER JOIN Bert.dbo.Bert b
      ON b.BertText LIKE  '%' + f.FredText + '%';
END;

Now I clear my Query Stores for the three database one last time. Then I’ll called the stored procedure from database Fred:

USE Fred;
EXEC Ernie.dbo.Horrible;

Here’s what I get from query store now:

So, Query Store logs the execution against database Ernie – where the stored procedure resides, rather than Fred – where it was called from, or Bert – where most of the work was done.

I hope you’ll trust me enough on that that I don’t have to demonstrate all the other combinations!

Related posts:

Introduction to SQL Server Query Store

Identify the (Top 20) most expensive queries across your SQL Server using Query Store

I’m a big fan of using queries based on the dynamic management view sys.dm_exec_query_stats to identify the most resource hungry queries across a SQL instance. There are lots of versions of this sort of query around the place if you google for “Top 20 queries”.

That approach has some limitations though. First, it is cleared out every time an instance restarts, and second it only keeps figures for currently cached plans, so when a query recompiles, data is lost.

The DMVs provided by SQL Server Query Store solve these issues, as data is persisted in the database over time, so nothing is lost on restarts etc. And one extra thing you gain by using the Query Store DMVs is that you can slice by time interval, for instance if you want to look at the before and after states relating to a change that has been made – or you want to look at an interval where performance degradation has been reported.

Some time ago I wrote a query store version of the “Top 20 queries” query that will produce a ranked list of your most expensive queries – and I’ve ended up using this a lot.

The only downside of using the DMVs for Query Store is that they are per database whereas dm_exec_query_stats is a view across the whole instance. So I had to use a cursor and a temp table, populating the temp table for each database in turn.

Here’s the query:

--Gather and report on most resource hungry queries
DECLARE @Reportinginterval int;
DECLARE @Database sysname;
DECLARE @StartDateText varchar(30);
DECLARE @TotalExecutions decimal(20,3);
DECLARE @TotalDuration decimal(20,3);
DECLARE @TotalCPU decimal(20,3);
DECLARE @TotalLogicalReads decimal(20,3);
DECLARE @SQL varchar(MAX);

--Set Reporting interval in days
SET @Reportinginterval = 1;

SET @StartDateText = CAST(DATEADD(DAY, -@Reportinginterval, GETUTCDATE()) AS varchar(30));

--Cursor to step through the databases
DECLARE curDatabases CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR
SELECT [name]
FROM sys.databases 
WHERE is_query_store_on = 1;

--Temp table to store the results
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #Stats;
CREATE TABLE #Stats (
   DatabaseName sysname,
   SchemaName sysname NULL,
   ObjectName sysname NULL,
   QueryText varchar(1000),
   TotalExecutions bigint,
   TotalDuration decimal(20,3),
   TotalCPU decimal(20,3),
   TotalLogicalReads bigint
);

OPEN curDatabases;
FETCH NEXT FROM curDatabases INTO @Database;

--Loop through the datbases and gather the stats
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
    
    SET @SQL = '
	   USE [' + @Database + ']
	   INSERT intO #Stats
	   SELECT 
		  DB_NAME(),
		  s.name AS SchemaName,
		  o.name AS ObjectName,
		  SUBSTRING(t.query_sql_text,1,1000) AS QueryText,
		  SUM(rs.count_executions) AS TotalExecutions,
		  SUM(rs.avg_duration * rs.count_executions) AS TotalDuration,
		  SUM(rs.avg_cpu_time * rs.count_executions) AS TotalCPU,
		  SUM(rs.avg_logical_io_reads * rs.count_executions) AS TotalLogicalReads
	   FROM sys.query_store_query q
	   INNER JOIN sys.query_store_query_text t
		  ON q.query_text_id = t.query_text_id
	   INNER JOIN sys.query_store_plan p
		  ON q.query_id = p.query_id
	   INNER JOIN sys.query_store_runtime_stats rs
		  ON p.plan_id = rs.plan_id
	   INNER JOIN sys.query_store_runtime_stats_interval rsi
		  ON rs.runtime_stats_interval_id = rsi.runtime_stats_interval_id
	   LEFT JOIN sys.objects o
		  ON q.OBJECT_ID = o.OBJECT_ID
	   LEFT JOIN sys.schemas s
		  ON o.schema_id = s.schema_id     
	   WHERE rsi.start_time > ''' + @StartDateText + '''
	   GROUP BY s.name, o.name, SUBSTRING(t.query_sql_text,1,1000)
	   OPTION(RECOMPILE);';

    EXEC (@SQL);

    FETCH NEXT FROM curDatabases INTO @Database;
END;

CLOSE curDatabases;
DEALLOCATE curDatabases;

--Aggregate some totals
SELECT 
    @TotalExecutions = SUM(TotalExecutions),
    @TotalDuration = SUM (TotalDuration),
    @TotalCPU  = SUM(TotalCPU),
    @TotalLogicalReads = SUM(TotalLogicalReads)
FROM #Stats

--Produce output
SELECT TOP 20
    DatabaseName,
    SchemaName,
    ObjectName,
    QueryText,
    TotalExecutions,
    CAST((TotalExecutions/@TotalExecutions)*100 AS decimal(5,2)) AS [TotalExecutions %],
    CAST(TotalDuration/1000000 AS decimal(19,2)) AS [TotalDuration(s)],
    CAST((TotalDuration/@TotalDuration)*100 AS decimal(5,2)) AS [TotalDuration %],
    CAST((TotalDuration/TotalExecutions)/1000 AS decimal(19,2)) AS [AverageDuration(ms)],
    CAST(TotalCPU/1000000  AS decimal(19,2)) [TotalCPU(s)],
    CAST((TotalCPU/@TotalCPU)*100 AS decimal(5,2)) AS [TotalCPU %],
    CAST((TotalCPU/TotalExecutions)/1000 AS decimal(19,2)) AS [AverageCPU(ms)],   
    TotalLogicalReads,
    CAST((TotalLogicalReads/@TotalLogicalReads)*100 AS decimal(5,2)) AS [TotalLogicalReads %],
  CAST((TotalLogicalReads/TotalExecutions) AS decimal(19,2)) AS [AverageLogicalReads]   
FROM #Stats
--Order by the resource you're most interested in

--ORDER BY TotalExecutions DESC
--ORDER BY TotalDuration DESC
ORDER BY TotalCPU DESC
--ORDER BY TotalLogicalReads DESC

DROP TABLE #Stats;

The script limits itself to looking at databases where query store is enabled.

If you want to bring back more results you can just change the TOP statement, and if you want to look at the results ordered by a different resource (e.g. Reads) then just make sure the relevant ORDER BY clause is uncommented. With other small modifications I find this script useful in a myriad of scenarios. I hope you find it useful too.

Related:

How does Query Store capture cross database queries?

Introduction to SQL Server Query Store