Here, we are going to find a simple and very efficient way to identify missing indexes in SQL Server. The method is used to query cached plan in SQL Server and identify the missing index information from the Cached plan.

Please have a look and share your thoughts on the same.

Script

;WITH XMLNAMESPACES
   (DEFAULT 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/07/showplan')
SELECT 
	query_plan, n.value('(@StatementText)[1]', 'VARCHAR(4000)') AS sql_text,
	n.value('(//MissingIndexGroup/@Impact)[1]', 'FLOAT') AS impact,
	DB_ID(REPLACE(REPLACE(n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Database)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)'),'[',''),']','')) AS database_id,
	OBJECT_ID(n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Database)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + '.' +
    n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Schema)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + '.' +
    n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Table)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)')) AS OBJECT_ID,
	n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Database)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + '.' +
    n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Schema)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + '.' +
    n.value('(//MissingIndex/@Table)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') AS statement,
	(   SELECT DISTINCT c.value('(@Name)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + ', '
		FROM n.nodes('//ColumnGroup') AS t(cg)
		CROSS APPLY cg.nodes('Column') AS r(c)
		WHERE cg.value('(@Usage)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') = 'EQUALITY' FOR  XML PATH('')) AS equality_columns,
	(  SELECT DISTINCT c.value('(@Name)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + ', '
		FROM n.nodes('//ColumnGroup') AS t(cg)
		CROSS APPLY cg.nodes('Column') AS r(c)
		WHERE cg.value('(@Usage)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') = 'INEQUALITY' FOR  XML PATH('')) AS inequality_columns,
	(  SELECT DISTINCT c.value('(@Name)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') + ', '
		FROM n.nodes('//ColumnGroup') AS t(cg)
		CROSS APPLY cg.nodes('Column') AS r(c)
		WHERE cg.value('(@Usage)[1]', 'VARCHAR(128)') = 'INCLUDE' FOR  XML PATH('')) AS include_columns,
		tab.text,ObjectName
FROM
(
   SELECT query_plan,text,ObjectName   FROM (
			SELECT usecounts,cacheobjtype,objtype,query.text,object_name(query.objectid) ObjectName ,executionplan.query_plan
			FROM sys.dm_exec_cached_plans
			OUTER APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(plan_handle) as query
			OUTER APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(plan_handle) as executionplan
			WHERE [text] NOT LIKE '%sys%'  AND cacheobjtype ='compiled plan' ) qs
   WHERE qs.query_plan.exist('//MissingIndex')=1
) AS tab (query_plan,text,ObjectName)

CROSS APPLY query_plan.nodes('//StmtSimple') AS q(n)
WHERE n.exist('QueryPlan/MissingIndexes') = 1