Quest Software is offering a suite of SQL performance and tuning tools that integrate into Microsoft Visual Studio, making it easy for a developer to write SQL code that's optimized as well as bug-free.
Programmers are not always database administrators, and in some companies the two teams spend more time developing friction than they do software. Programmers want to make their applications work, but the database calls they include in the software can make a DBA shake her head in frustration.
That's the problem that Quest Software Inc. is addressing with its SQL Optimizer for Visual Studio and CompareRocket for Visual Studio. Eighty percent of database performance problems are still SQL related, explained Quest's Douglas Chrystall. The add-ins are integrated into the Microsoft IDE, so database tuning can be built into a developer's own process, according to the company.
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The component will find the best way to write the SQL statement against the specific database the developer is working with. "In a click of a button," said Kevin Kline, technical strategist for Quest Software and Microsoft SQL Server MVP, "the SQL statement is delivered in a better form."
This one-click database tuning process doesn't just make the developer's job easier. It saves exhausting frustration for DBAs. DBAs often feel that they have to supervise the specific SQL calls made, or developers will write database applications that are not tuned correctly. SQL Optimizer for Visual Studio is "almost as though you have a review board" for the DBA, said Kline.
"We always want the developer to look like a rock star," added Chrystall.
The company also released this week its Quest Comparison Suite: three new tools that allows DBAs to compare and synchronize the schema, data and server settings of two SQL Server environments.
