Troubleshooting performance issues and tuning queries in SQL Server can be easier with some level of understanding about statistics. If you want to understand how the optimizer uses statistics when creating a query plan, and why they're so important, then join me for this session. We’ll define what statistics are, examine how the optimizer uses them, and review how to find cardinality estimate information in a plan. We’ll also cover the various ways statistics can be updated, and explore what happens to plans when those updates occur, so you can understand why maintaining statistics is essential for performance. Expect lots of demos so you can fully grasp what statistics are, how they're used, and why their management is so essential for good performance.