Check out the new white paper “Key Methods for Managing Complex DB Environments” at Quest.com. Heterogeneous database management hassles used to be much less common than today. When I first started at Quest nearly ten years ago, I'd put forward that on 15-20% of my big customers regularly managed more than one major database platform. (That doesn't mean they didn't have more than one, rather secondary platforms were either unmanaged or considered entirely unimportant). Today, I'd put forward that 70-80% of my big customers support at least two major database platforms. Often, they support … [Read more...]
New Releases in the Toad Family of Tools
Toad Extension for Visual Studio 1.2 is now live. You can access it HERE. Key new features in Toad Extension for Visual Studio v1.2: Deployment Scripts: the pre- and post-deployment scripts of TFS are now supported. XML Columns: supports tables with XML data type columns. Nested Tables: supports tables with up to two levels of nested table type columns. Synonyms: synonyms can now be imported into your DB project Source Navigation: You can now use F12 navigation to find the definition of items in the code editor. Stored Procedures: generate Oracle stored procedures that … [Read more...]
Wednesday Quest: Toad and Policy-Based Management
Did you know that Toad for SQL Server has some nice features for users of policy-based management (PBM)? Importing Policies For example, Toad can import policies into a PBM server, so that you don’t have to manually create them every time. You can import policies that you have exported from other servers, and you can also import the Microsoft Best Practice Policies. (Read about the concept HERE). The Microsoft policies are a great place to start learning what you can do with PBM, by simply importing them and inspecting their various configurations. They are installed by default and … [Read more...]
Wednesday Quest: Power GUI Integration
Two tools that I really like are PowerGUI, a tool to take all the hard work out of PowerShell scripting, available in both free and paid versions from Quest Software. You can also get PowerGUI extensions for Visual Studio for free from CodePlex. Another tool I really like is PowerWF. PowerWF is a really cool visual workflow builder that creates PowerShell scripts for you. Turns out that it integrates with PowerGUI! This video shows 2 different ways that PowerWF Workflows can be run from within Quest Software's PowerGUI tool. Watch the Video - Download PowerWF Enjoy! -Kev … [Read more...]
Totally Awesome and Totally Free Training SQL Server Training
One of the things that I enjoy about working for Quest Software is that we give back copiously to the community. From activities and offerings like SQLServerPedia, to our free posters mailed anywhere in North America (and don't forget the free hi-res PDFs for the rest of the world), Don't forget that free DVDs of our virtual conferences featuring me, along with Buck Woody (blog | twitter) and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) will be mailed anywhere in North America free of charge, now available at this link. Enjoy! -Kevin Twitter at kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com … [Read more...]
Have You Heard About Project Lucy?
Quest Software's latest community initiative, Windows Azure-based Project Lucy, has debuted! Project Lucy is part infrastructure analytics, part social media experiment, and part performance data warehouse. The best things about Project Lucy include: It’s Free - just like our SQLServerPedia website, Project Lucy is free to anyone who wants to upload a trace file It’s 1oo% web-based - you don’t have to download or maintain anything and updates roll out seamlessly, all the time It really helps - just generate a SQL Trace on a SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008 instance, upload it on … [Read more...]