Aaron Bertrand

Anonymize your plan details natively in Plan Explorer

March 11, 2013 by in SQL Performance | 6 Comments
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Paul White is an independent SQL Server consultant specializing in performance tuning, execution plans, and the query optimizer.

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Earlier this month, I blogged about a PowerShell script from fellow MVP Jonathan Kehayias (blog | @SQLPoolBoy). Jonathan's script enables you to alter an execution plan to hide potentially sensitive data, such as table names and column names.

With the latest build of SQL Sentry Plan Explorer, you can now perform a similar style of obfuscation directly within the application – whether it is your intention to upload the plan to support or just to share it with a colleague.

There is a new menu item: Edit > Anonymize, which will strip the statement text and change database, table and column names to very generic things like Database1.Table2.Column3:

Edit_Anonymize

Here is an example before and after applying the option:

plan_before
A plan that may contain sensitive information

Plan after
Same plan, after anonymizing

Notice that it puts the obfuscated plan in a new tab, so you can continue working with the original, non-obfuscated version.

 

You may have noticed another difference in the screen shots above. A new feature that has been introduced in Plan Explorer is custom layouts – giving you a massive amount of flexibility in the way you view graphical plans. I won't steal any of his thunder, so you'll want to check out this post from Greg Gonzalez (blog | @SQLsensei) for more details:

https://blogs.sentryone.com/author/GregGonzalez/plan-explorer-pro-2-5-query-plans-your-way/