We’ve been busy modifying SQL Sentry Plan Explorer so it will work seamlessly with the changed add-in model in the new Management Studio. (As a bit of background, SSMS is now based on the Visual Studio 2015 shell, and some work is required to transition existing add-ins.)
I am happy to announce that, as of today, Plan Explorer 2.8 (build 10.1.94), with add-in support for SSMS 2016, is now available!
As you can see, I am using the most recent build of Plan Explorer (released this week), along with the most recent build of Management Studio (released June 1st), and am able to open or generate an execution plan within SSMS, then use the right-click context menu to open the plan in Plan Explorer. (Click either screen shot to enlarge.)
Of course, the plan is missing some important metrics, such as Duration, Reads, and Writes. Whenever I present about our software, I stress the value of generating an actual, post-execution plan from within Plan Explorer (or SQL Sentry Performance Advisor); this provides the most complete set of information you’ll be able to get about that execution.
On a new VM, I installed Plan Explorer first, and then Management Studio, but you can do this in either order and everything should work. Please let me know if you have any issues!
Note that our testing covers the GA (June 2016) release of Management Studio, so please don’t try using earlier CTP or RC builds. Certain builds may work, but I strongly recommend updating to the GA build regardless.
Downloads and Other Information
To download the latest build of SQL Sentry Plan Explorer:
To see the change list:
To see the announcement about the new version of SSMS reaching GA (General Availability):
To download the latest release of Management Studio:
