Our experts at Quest continue to work hard to develop educational material for our end users to learn from, thus allowing them to become product experts themselves. Unfortunately, due to the hectic schedule of our end users, they are sometimes unable to put all the pieces together. In this blog, I piece together some steps for using the Toad Data Modeler and tying it back to Toad for Oracle by presenting a situation, steps,...

This is the 2nd of 3 blogs on Toad for Oracle DBA features

I sometimes worry that people are confused about how to use the Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to help them tune their SQL statements. The solution is extremely powerful and provides you with the options to control numerous aspects of the optimization process. In fact, I suggest you read Richard To’s articles on Toad World to get an in depth understanding of the optimization process and the various settings within the SQL...

We all come from different backgrounds... some of us are old Toadies, and some of us are used to different tools. Did you know that Toad for Data Analysts can be configured to act and look much like Toad for Oracle and many other tools? Even down to the keyboard shortcuts? I'll show you how.

Written by Finn Ellebaek Nielsen. Best practices for a test approach that implements the test policy and strategy Oracle code laid out in a previous blog post.

When selecting the best performing SQL statement for your application, how should disk I/O be weighed in comparison to the run time when you are selecting the best SQL alternative to replace your original SQL statement?

This is the first of 3 blogs on DBA features in Toad for Oracle

I am very happy to announce that we went GA with Toad for DB2 V4.5 on 7/21. This is by far the biggest, best release of Toad for DB2 to date. With this version we have introduced a full featured database administrator’s tool capable of handling the largest DB2 environments.

 

Some of the highlights of the 4.5 release are:

 

General

Sync point restart in scripts for better management...

I spend way too much of my life on airplanes zipping around to different places, doing presentations and trainings on PL/SQL. In the process, I meet many PL/SQL developers – and I continue to be surprised and disappointed at how many developers do not know about or at least do not seem to take advantage of very powerful and useful features of PL/SQL. So I have to decided to list below all those elements of PL/SQL that I consider...

Last week, I was demonstrating some of our DBA-focused features of Toad for DB2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows). When we came to the topic of Extended Alters, the audience voiced some concerns about the efficiency of this feature. Specifically, they were concerned with how Toad for DB2’s generated script was handling the data stored in the table we were altering. The customer is dealing with very large data sets, so simple INSERT statements were not going to help. They wanted to know if Toad for DB2 could take advantage of some DB2 utilities that make this process more efficient. Let’s explore the scenario a little further.

We got an interesting question into our sales support queue this week. A new Toad user was frustrated because they weren’t seeing the type of feedback they were used to seeing in SQL Navigator.

Steven proposes a solution to a customer's question about using a 2 dimensional array in PL/SQL.

Sometimes information systems professionals can get “caught up” in our own worlds. For example, project managers and their developers might focus on latest and greatest application development methodologies such as Extreme Programming (XP) or Agile Development. Likewise enterprise architects might be adopting some new or updated modeling conventions. While database administrators (DBA’s) are often engaged and engrossed in the latest database versions and their new features. Now also include the new versions of the software we use to build systems, hardware’s exponential growth, new programming languages and everything else in a state of flux in our worlds – it’s easy to see why we’re often so overwhelmed that we forget some very basic facts.

...

 

Have you ever had a need to recover data? Have you ever looked at data or maybe scripts and thought something is not correct? When working with databases there are times when we may have a loss of data or files. Has this ever happened and there is no backup information to rely on?

 

During my time as both a Developer and DBA I have worked with numerous Oracle export file (dmp files). Often I could be...

This blog recaps a few of the major highlights that Jeff covers in a typical two hour Toad for Oracle tips and tricks session.

A SQL statement with a variable that is provided at run time poses an extra challenge when trying to determine which alternative SQL statement is going to give the best overall performance. Each time the SQL statement is executed, a different variable could be supplied.

Dan Hotka and I wrote the TOAD Handbook back in 2003. Of course since then TOAD has changed quite a bit – both in terms of the graphical user interface and functionality. Thus we have updated the content and created the TOAD Handbook 2nd Edition,...

You may already be familiar with the Toad World Exclusive Freeware area from where you can download and use really useful utilities such as the PL/Vision Code Library and the Freeware version of Quest Code Tester for Oracle.

 

Well here is another utility you’re going to find really interesting and it’s called the Toad Group Policy Manager.

 

As you probably figured out from its name, it has something...

You may already be familiar with the Toad World Exclusive Freeware area from where you can download and use really useful utilities such as the PL/Vision Code Library and the Freeware version of Quest Code Tester for Oracle.

 

Now there are two more which I’d like to introduce you to – one which has been around for many years and the other a relative newcomer.

 

The first one is called SQL Monitor....

As many of you may be aware, Toad for Oracle is available in a number of different Editions and Suites. For those of you who have Toad Development Suite for Oracle or Toad DBA Suite for Oracle, there are a number of recent product updates which you can take advantage of now (GA Release Date July 8th) rather than waiting for the next full scheduled release of Toad (due in October).

The below listed products are, of...

Written by Olivier Gaudin

 

Toad for Oracle’s Code Xpert utility (part of the Toad Professional Edition) is one of the best PL/SQL code analyzers available on the market, embedding the know-how of leading PL/SQL experts such as Steven Feuerstein. However, although there is the option to store data in the Code Xpert repository for point-in-time reporting, it is still primarily a static reporting tool and therefore...

Written by Finn Ellebaek Nielsen. Best practices for establishing a test policy, as well as a test strategy for Oracle code.

There are always those DBA’s who refuse to use GUI tools because they prefer scripts. And that’s OK – it’s a personal preference. But recently I’ve seen some stuff posted on the web and sent in email blasts suggesting that people who do use DBA GUI tools like TOAD and OEM are somehow suspect as to their skill levels. And yes, I am sure there are some people who might not know Oracle very well but get along just well enough...