How Plan Explorer Group Operators in Query Columns Tab The two Index Seek (highlighted in green and red) are for filtering, they did not group in Query Columns tab. But the two Object3 highlighted in red are grouped together instead. Here is the XML Plan.



Does anyone has idea about why PE group the two Object3 highlighted in red and leave the Object3 highlighted in green in another group. I'm sorry asking such a stupid question, because I am a newbie in SQL tuning.

Here is the "Query Columns" tab I am talking about. Plan Explorer grouped the Index Seek and Index Scan. Actually, Plan Explorer will group Index Seek/Scan and Key/RID Lookup together. In this case, I understand the purpose. It help us considering adding the lookup column as an INCLUDE column to an index.

But I don't understand the purpose behind why PE grouped the highlighted Index Seek and Index Scan together!
At first, it looks like you've modified XML, because the query does not exactly match the plan.

At second, format your query like this 

SELECT o2.Column1, 
       o2.Column2, 
       o1.Column3, 
       o1.Column4, 
       o1.Column5 
  FROM Object1 as o1, 
       Object2 as o2, 
       Object3 as o3 
 WHERE o1.Column3 = o3.Column6 
   AND o2.Column1 = o3.Column7 
   AND o3.Column8 between ? and ?
   and o3.Column7 &lt; ?


At third, instead of having separate indexes on Column7 and Column8 (green and red seeks) you better create one index on Column7 + Column8 (green first) and have included Column6. That will help you to avoid Red Scan.

At fourth, (optional) you can create index on o1.Column3 with included columns o1.Column3, o1.Column4, o1.Column5