toad for sql server

When I was at my former company, I developed with ColdFusion and Oracle. Being at a Fortune 500 company allowed me to work with a very expensive and the best data base in the world. While working with Oracle, I started out using SQL Plus, which is a command line interface to the database. After a year or so of that, we found a product from Quest Software, called TOAD (Tools for Oracle Application Development). We used it every day, and saw our productivity increase. Our DBAs used it too and their jobs got sooo much better!

When I moved to my current employer and team, I had to transition to SQL Server 2000. I found that it was very similar to Oracle and I still have not found something it cannot do that Oracle can do. It might be easier to do things in Oracle because more things are built in, but I can get both databases to come to the same end result.

Along with moving to a new database platform, I had to move to a new development tool(s) - Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer. I found my productivity back to levels like when I was using SQL Plus for Oracle. I did not know the toolset, and I was too impatient to learn it. I did a quick search on Quest's site, and found that they have TOADs for other databases, and most importantly SQL Server.

I downloaded the free version of TOAD for SQL Server, and started using it. I had to download it a few more times, because the key runs out after I think 30 days. I did that for a time, and finally asked my boss if we could buy a few seats of it. Productivity increased by alot!

The big thing that TOAD for SQL Server has is a query optimizer. It takes a query and puts it through an algorithm and gives you back 20 or more different ways to write the query you entered. It also will give you ideas on how to optimize your tables that you are querying. i.e. it will give you what indexes you should put on a table to get the best performance out of it. This was a HUGE selling point for my team. Now, I am not the only person using it. We have four other developers using TOAD and another developer asked me just the other day if he could get a license.

The best part is that Quest still offers a free trial version. You can download it at http://www.quest.com/toad-for-sql-server/software_downloads.aspx and try it out. I am betting that you will be more productive and be able to write better performing queries with the help of TOAD for SQL Server!