 <p>One thing I always do (if possible) I run the DB Tuning Advisor.</p> <p>Don't get me wrong - I don't follow all his rules and suggestions, but it is an easy way to see what's going on, how often what occures and so on. Some hours of (typical!!!) workload are good to get some basic "feeling" what's going on.</p> <p>And after it you can decide to implement some of the suggestions or not. And even if you did your best in design - such a check looks what's really going on (not always predictable) and maybe you forget some statistics or a different index could help...</p>