Keeps a history of query text, plans and runtime statistics, making a plan regression visible and fixable by forcing an earlier plan. It is enabled from the start in Azure SQL and Fabric's SQL database, and for databases newly created on SQL Server 2022 onwards.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Query Store in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Statistics
Information about how values are distributed in a column, which the warehouse optimiser uses to estimate plan costs. Fabric builds and updates it for you; manual CREATE, UPDATE and DROP STATISTICS are limited to single-column histograms.
- Regression
Predictive, rather than generative, supervised learning technique that outputs a number, for example rentals or revenue.
- EARLIER
Within nested DAX row contexts, lets an inner calculation read a column as it stood in an outer pass; EARLIEST jumps to the outermost. Most people now use variables, which read more clearly.
- Auditing
Azure SQL capability that sends database audit logs to Log Analytics, Event Hubs or a storage account; that account is allowed to be in a different region.
- Serverless
Compute tier for single Azure SQL databases that scales automatically, pauses when idle and charges by the second. It is offered in General Purpose and Hyperscale, not Business Critical, and reserved capacity does not apply.
- Schema
The middle part of a Unity Catalog name (
catalog.schema.table), grouping tables, views, volumes, functions and models inside a catalog. A grant on it covers everything in it now and later, and nothing inside can be reached withoutUSE SCHEMA. - SQL Server
The relational database from Microsoft that organisations host and run themselves, in their own data centres or on VMs. Its engine also sits underneath the Azure SQL services and SQL database in Fabric.
Related terms
- Queries With Forced Plans
Found under Query Store in SSMS, this report lists each query that has a plan forced on it, making it easy to review or remove that forcing.
- Queries With High Variation
A Query Store report in SSMS that surfaces queries whose run times differ a lot from one execution to the next, frequently pointing to parameter sensitivity.
- Query Performance Insight
Draws on Query Store data in the Azure portal to rank queries in single and pooled Azure SQL databases by CPU, duration or how often they run. Without an active Query Store it has nothing to display.
- Regressed Queries
Lists queries whose metrics have deteriorated; this SSMS Query Store report includes buttons to force or unforce a plan when fixing a regression.
- Top Resource Consuming Queries
A Query Store report in SSMS that orders queries by whichever resource measure you pick, for example CPU or duration, across a chosen period.