I think you're giving me WAY too much credit on this one Jeff. Let me look the plans over...

I'm not sure.

I assume that the EXISTS operator must be pushing down...

If you can post the plans, do that (SentryOne Plan Explorer can make them anonymous).

It's likely that Jeff has nailed it (Jeff is right a lot). Most of the time,...

The ping command is your buddy.

Get and compare the execution plans for the two queries. That's your best bet when the question "What's happening with this query" comes up.

Also, why XML for an existence check?...

It could be any number of things. The port is blocked for them. The DNS doesn't recognize the name. The IP address is wrong. Wrong password (sql login, which it...

Did one better and just marked it as spam.

Please tell me you're not lying on your CV.

OK, here's a real world experience that represented a challenge to me. You can use this on your next interview to explain...

You've moved out of my core knowledge. I agree that you've proven it's related to the CPU and therefore to the VMs management of it. Good luck getting the people...

Every single time I hear "Performance is different, but everything is the same" it always comes around to things not being the same. Don't focus on the code. Focus on...

If you're not working on administrative tasks, then you can do most of the work of development in any of the three environments. The core behaviors are identical. And SQL...

Good luck. I'm pretty ignorant on the VMWare front as well. Nice to find out what changed though.

There has to be difference of some kind. Always. If the plans are absolutely identical (and please, not just the graphics are the same, the data behind it is the...

One of the things to try :

if it works fine with maxdop 1,  enable QueryStore if it's not enabled yet,  get fast plan captured in it and force the...

The execution plan stays the same between MaxDop 1 and other settings? Cause overall, I'd say you crossed a threshold on row counts. That's when I've seen things go south....

The Visual Studio query editing environment is largely, but not perfectly, the same as writing it in SSMS. The core behaviors are the same. I'd say that people who work...