WayneS (9/7/2010)
Have you got some references you can pass on about how the optimizer works?
For sure:
Craig Freedman: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/craigfr/
SQL Server Storage Engine: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlserverstorageengine/
CSS: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psssql/
Query Processing: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlqueryprocessing/
White Papers: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb671430.aspx
SQLCAT: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlcat/
Conor vs. SQL: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/conor_cunningham_msft/
Programmability & API: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlprogrammability/
Bart Duncan: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bartd/
Conor @ SQLskills: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/conor/
QO Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/queryoptteam/
Joe Chang: http://www.qdpma.com/CBO/SQLServerCostBasedOptimizer.html
The SQL Server Internals books edited by Kalen Delaney are also excellent sources. Optimizer stuff is covered particularly well in 2008 Internals (Conor Cunningham) and 2005 Query Tuning & Optimization (Craig Freedman).
Paul White
SQLPerformance.com
SQLkiwi blog
@SQL_Kiwi