Database Management Tools
SQL Sentry Event Manager
SQL Sentry's SQL Sentry Event Manager earned the platinum award in the Database
Management Tools category after taking gold last year. "Definitely the feature
set and ease of use" plays a part in why Bluestreak, a marketing services company
and application service provider, uses Event Manager, says Senior Data Architect
Aaron Bertrand. The company has three production clusters, two production reporting
instances, and dozens of development, QA, and staging instances. "There are
a few bare-bones tools out there if you really search, but it would take five
or ten different tools just to be on par with Event Manager," Bertrand says.
Scott Brooks, director of the hosting services division at Peak 10, a managed
services firm, agrees about the value Event Manager provides. He says that prior
to using Event Manager, his division had to manually check whether jobs that
fired were completed. Besides automating tasks, Event Manager helps Peak 10
with job querying, scheduled tasks, and performance monitoring. "It could say
which server was hogging resources—it ties Windows performance monitors
to a SQL job," Brooks says. Brooks also praises SQL Sentry's customer support:
"They really take ownership of an issue." Bertrand recalls, "I remember mentioning
to one of the [SQL Sentry] marketing folks that their product was like Outlook
for SQL Server. He gave me a T-shirt to show his appreciation for the compliment,
but it wasn't a bribe, because nobody overheard." Contact SQL Sentry at http://www.sqlsentry.net/eventmanager/enterprise-sql-server.asp
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Quest Software Quest Central for SQL Server
Quest Central for SQL Server, Quest Software's suite of integrated database
management products, takes the gold award. With this suite, DBAs have the tools
to predict, diagnose, and solve database performance problems. The suite consists
of Quest's Spotlight on SQL Server, Quest Performance Analysis for SQL Server,
SQL Tuning, and Capacity Manager for SQL Server. Commenting on Quest Central
in the comparative review "Shrink-Wrapped DBAs" (May 2006, InstantDoc ID 49748),
Michael Campbell wrote, "Quest Central offers solid tuning and analysis for
less-skilled DBAs to help them get their servers, code, and configurations into
shape. The product's helpful real-time metrics are great for troubleshooting
problems." Quest Central can predict when the quality of system performance
will decrease and lets you view SQL Server sessions, replication information,
blocks, deadlocks, and disk activity. Reporting comes from a single, consolidated
interface, and the suite helps DBAs with trending and forecasting as well. Although
Campbell felt the functionality of the code editor was "a bit weak" and mentioned
that the product "lacks the ability to export or migrate schema or changes,"
he praised its "cross-platform manageability, speedy UI, excellent real-time
monitoring functionality" and "solid analysis components." Contact Quest Software
at http://www.quest.com/quest-central-for-sql-server
—Caroline Marwitz
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Performance and Database Monitoring Tools
Quest Software Quest Spotlight on SQL Server
Quest Spotlight on SQL Server, the platinum winner in the Performance and Database
Monitoring Tools category, is an agent-less Windows-based diagnostic and resolution
solution that eliminates time-consuming manual tasks and reduces application
and database downtime. The tool's graphic dashboard displays real-time activity
of database components to help you proactively catch and resolve problems before
they become critical. Dashboard icons display key SQL Server statistics and
metrics, and graphical flows between interface elements represent the rate of
data moving between the components. Drilling into any of these metrics or components
shows you more detailed information and related statistics.
In his review of Spotlight on SQL Server (February 2007, InstantDoc ID 94537),
Michael Campbell rated the tool 4.5 out of 5 and wrote, "Overall, Spotlight
on SQL Server is a great product that has a minimal learning curve and offers
a great deal of functionality." He adds that it's an "indispensable resource
if you have many servers to monitor or are in an environment with a lot of ad
hoc activity." Contact Quest Software at http://www.quest.com/spotlight-on-sql-server-enterprise
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Development Tools
Altova DatabaseSpy 2007
The platinum winner in the Development Tools category, Altova DatabaseSpy 2007,
is a multi-database management and design tool that provides a common interface
for IT professionals and consultants who work in heterogeneous database environments.
Michael D. Cassens, in his review of DatabaseSpy (February 2007, InstantDoc
ID 94537), praised the software's straightforward installation. He also commented
on the ease with which the product lets you run queries from any table, and
he was impressed with the SQL Editor's auto-complete feature. But the Design
Editor feature really stood out—Michael touted it as "the feature that
provides the most benefit to IT professionals." This feature lets you add existing
tables to the design view, create new tables, and add and edit columns with
one click. One drawback that Michael mentioned was that he couldn't create columns
of data type XML. Altova has addressed this problem in DatabaseSpy 2007 R3;
this release provides superior support for XML database content. It includes
new columns containing XML data that can be added to database tables via the
database Design Editor, as well as access to detailed properties of XML data
types. Overall, DatabaseSpy is a unique tool that makes SQL editing and multi-database
structure design easier for a fraction of the cost of single-database solutions.
Contact Altova at http://www.altova.com/products/databasespy/database_tool.html
DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET
The gold winner in the Development Tools category is DataDirect Connect for
ADO .NET. This data provider enables interoperability between database versions
and vendors by abstracting differences between diverse databases and database
versions. It uses a managed-code architecture to eliminate the need for database
clients, boost performance, and deliver a flexible, secure connection to Oracle,
DB2, SQL Server, and Sybase. I spoke with an ISV senior software engineer who
services enterprise customers of varying sizes, and he told me why his organization
uses DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET. Initially, he says, his company was looking
for "a single vendor who could satisfy all our database connectivity requirements,
including ODBC, JDBC, and, more recently, .NET." Before using DataDirect Connect
for ADO. NET, his company "had numerous support and compatibility issues between
products from different vendors." In seeking a solution for porting his company's
C++ product to Java and .NET, the engineer told me, "DataDirect was the logical
choice ... well suited to [their] requirements, and pleasantly bug free. A significant
benefit is that DataDirect ADO.NET's APIs more closely resemble JDBC APIs than
do those of other vendors [thus] reducing the effort in maintaining parallel
Java and .NET versions of products." Another benefit is DataDirect's support,
which the engineer and his company found to be "an appealing distinction from
[typical] database vendor support." Contact DataDirect at http://www.datadirect.com/products/
net/index.ssp
—Lavon Peters
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Symantec i3 for SQL Server
Maintaining optimal performance and availability of your database environment
requires constant monitoring and problem solving. According to a recent Applied
Research survey, as much as 24 percent of IT staff time is devoted to addressing
performance delays in business applications such as SQL Server. Symantec's gold-winning
solution, Symantec i3 for SQL Server, can help reduce the drag on
IT resources and keep application downtime to a minimum. Symantec Server Foundation
and APM Product Group Vice President Henri Isenberg says that i3 (which
stands for "Insight, In-depth, Inform") performance monitoring software takes
a proactive approach to discovering and solving problems, giving you more control
over application and database performance and availability. The agent-based
software captures, measures, and correlates performance metrics from all critical
system components and puts them into a central repository to provide a complete
view of application performance. When the tool detects a problem or bottleneck,
it helps you pinpoint the cause, identify the best course of action, and quickly
restore peak performance. Real-time alerts help ensure that production and operations
groups respond quickly, and role-based administration allows people within the
organization to access only the information they're entitled to view. Contact
Symantec at http://www.symantec.com
—Gayle Rodcay
See Associated Figure
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