And to see what indexes are being used and how they're being used, you want to look at the Execution Plans. The book in my link is available in digital...

If you could zip the execution plan and post it instead of the picture, we might be able to help. All the good stuff on an execution plan is in...

Your function is a table, not a value. You're trying to compare a value, e.ID, to a table. You can't do that. You can join to your table instead, but...

The actual plan shows the number of threads used. Counting worker threads you're seeing other artifacts from other processes, including system processes. MAXDOP limits the number of concurrent processors used...

Index use depends on the amount of data it's going to filter. Take a look at the estimated number of rows each time it's doing a scan. I'll bet you...

Since a view is a definition of a query, but is not the actual query that is run when the view is accessed, tuning a view is quite difficult. For...

There is an Oracle specific forum. It might have people monitoring it who know more about Oracle.

So, you have 500 rows. You're adding them all with GETDATE(), then your filtering based on the todays date? Right? You realize that all 500 rows are going to have...

If you're running SQL Server 2017, Query Store is your bestest friend in the world. Enable Query Store, You'll be able to look at a given query and see how...

If you're by yourself on the server and you've recently had the database open in the Object Explorer in SSMS, say looking at tables or something, in addition to changing...

Without seeing the execution plan, the indexes and the statistics, I only have guesses.

Row estimates are off. That usually points to statistics. I know you've said you've updated them, but...

I'd use NOT EXISTS probably

SELECT e.EmployeeNo

FROM dbo.Employees AS e

WHERE NOT EXISTS(

SELECT sl.SalaryLevelID

FROM  dbo.SalaryLevel AS sl

WHERE sl.SalaryLevelID = e.SalaryLevelID);

There are other ways as well. An outer join & filter on NULL...

Thanks for taking on all the good comments everyone. I was away for a bit.

Phil suggested DevOps, which I heartily, vociferously, and vigorously agree with.

For some reason it was marked as Spam. I unmarked it.

I'll add PowerShell. Automate all the things.

Also, you said tuning,...

The Blocked Process Report is an event within SQL Server. That's what you're setting the threshold for. You can read about it here. And yes, some monitoring tools use...