During the past 5 years, Microsoft SQL Server has evolved from a departmental database solution to a leading enterprise platform. Well-known organizations such as Expedia, the Home Shopping Network, JetBlue Airways, NASDAQ, Nestlé, and Pennzoil-Quaker State have high-profile SQL Server 2000 implementations, and the application has become as highly regarded as IBM's DB2 and Oracle. SQL Server's quick rise to enterprise-database status began with the SQL Server 7.0 release, in which Microsoft completely rebuilt the database to make it more scalable and efficient. In the same release, Microsoft introduced SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services and forever transformed the database marketplace by integrating business intelligence (BI) capabilities with the relational database engine. In SQL Server 2000, Microsoft continued to enhance the application's relational database engine; the company also improved OLAP Services and renamed it SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services. SQL Server 2000 has justified its reputation for enterprise scalability by holding, at various times, the top TPC-C scores for clustered and nonclustered database performance.
SQL Server 2000 ships with easy-to-use, effective tools that handle the basic requirements for database development and management. But in today's landscape of multiple platforms, your complex implementation might need more muscle than the built-in tools can provide. Fortunately, third-party vendors have come to the rescue by providing add-on products that build on the basic SQL Server toolset. In many cases, these products add depth to functional areas to address important enterprise-level requirements. In this article, I describe some areas in which third-party add-ons enhance SQL Server and provide an overview of some of these products' important characteristics. Table 1, lists the products by function and includes vendor contact information.
Management
Out of the box, SQL Server 2000 includes powerful management tools called SQL Server Enterprise Manager, SQL Query Analyzer, and SQL Server Profiler. But these tools have limitations; they don't work with other database applications or with every SQL Server release. To bridge this multiple-database gap, one class of third-party SQL Server products provides management tools that work with all the supported database platforms. In some cases, these tools' capabilities exceed those of SQL Server's native management tools.
Embarcadero Technologies' DBArtisan provides schema-, security-, and space-management tools and lets you view the procedure cache, buffer cache, and current database locks. DBArtisan manages DB2 Universal Database (UDB), DB2/390, Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase databases. Quest Software's Quest Central for Databases provides heterogeneous and comprehensive database management and also supports DB2 UDB, DB2/390, Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase. BMC Software's SmartDBA product suite features SmartDBA Cockpit, which lets you use a Web browser to manage the supported database platforms. The SmartDBA product suite supports DB2 UDB, DB2/390, Oracle, and SQL Server.
Some companies' enterprise-management tools support SQL Server but aren't expressly geared to the task; instead, they view SQL Server and other database products as one component in the overall enterprise-management picture. One such product, NetIQ's AppManager for Microsoft SQL Server, maximizes system availability by using automated event detection and correction. Heroix eQ Database Monitoring & Management, part of the Heroix eQ Management Suite, supports DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server. Other enterprise-management players include Computer Associates' (CA's) Unicenter CA-7 Job Management, HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM's Tivoli Management Solution for Microsoft SQL Server. Expand Beyond's PocketDBA manages SQL Server on the run. PocketDBA—which runs on any mobile device, such as the Pocket PC, that has built-in browser support—lets you manage SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and Teradata databases.
Other management tools can help you with ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting. One unique tool in this category is Lumigent Technologies' Log Explorer for SQL Server, which lets you selectively recover transaction-log entries and solve application and user problems at a fine-grained level. Log Explorer lets you identify and roll back schema and permission changes and recover data at the row level. Tools that help you automate SQL Server management include Db Maint 4.0, which schedules backups, sets up log shipping, and creates jobs for single or multiple servers. A & G Software's AGS SQL Scribe Documentation Builder is an automated documentation-creation system for SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0 that uses easily distributed HTML files to document database schema and perform cross referencing and indexing tasks.
Performance Monitoring
Performance-monitoring tools such as VERITAS Software's VERITAS Indepth for SQL Server proactively monitor your SQL Server systems and help you diagnose and correct performance problems before they affect your database applications. Quest Software's Spotlight on SQL Server features a graphical control panel that provides a real-time overview of current activity levels in the OS and SQL Server and lets you drill down into each area. NetIQ's DiagnosticManager for SQL Server provides real-time status displays that organize SQL Server information into logical groupings so that you can diagnose and correct problems. BMC Software's PATROL for Microsoft SQL Server also monitors SQL Server performance and features real-time notification and analysis of database events.
Real-time monitoring products provide one way to track down performance problems; another class of performance-monitoring tools analyzes your database structure and makes database-optimization suggestions. One such tool is FMS's Total SQL Analyzer PRO, which checks databases for more than 120 possible performance optimizations and configuration-and-design problems, then generates reports and tuning suggestions based on its findings.
Database Design
SQL Server ships with a Visual Database Tool called Database Designer, which provides basic relational-database modeling. However, a few notable third-party products offer capabilities beyond what Database Designer provides. Probably the best known of these tools is CA's AllFusion ERwin Data Modeler. Other powerful database-modeling tools include Embarcadero's ER/Studio and Quest Software's QDesigner. Like Database Designer, these products perform graphical-based database design. But they also feature advanced capabilities such as modeling and designing relational databases and data warehouses, support multiple database platforms in addition to SQL Server, and let you separate logical database and physical database design elements.
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