All statements executed in a stored procedure, including SELECT statements, generate an “x rows affected” message. These messages are typically not needed by the application when it is executing a stored procedure. Applications can execute the T-SQL statement SET NOCOUNT ON, so that the SQL Server does not return an indication of how many rows were affected by SQL statements, or by any statements within procedures. Issuing this command at the start of a large stored procedure can significantly reduce the network traffic between the server and client, and improve performance by eliminating these messages.