Query Processing and Execution - SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting - page 136

You will begin by looking at some trivial query plans, starting with a view of the graphical plans
but quickly switching to using the text plan features, as these are easier to compare against one
another, especially when you start looking at larger plans from more complex queries.
Here is the i rst trivial query to examine:
select firstname, COUNT (*)
from Person.Person
group by firstname
order by COUNT (*) desc
After running this in SSMS after enabling the Include Actual Execution Plan option, which is shown
in Figure 5-11, three tabs are displayed. The i rst is Results, but the one you are interested in now is
the third tab, which shows the graphical execution plan for this query.
You should see something like the image shown in Figure 5-12.
FIGURE 5-11
FIGURE 5-12