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Steven Feuerstein Indicates Oracle ACE director status
PL/SQL Obsession

Guy Harrison Indicates Oracle ACE status
Database topics

Bert Scalzo Indicates Oracle ACE status
Toad for Oracle, Data Modeling, Benchmarking
Dan Hotka Indicates Oracle ACE director status
SQL Tuning & PL/SQL Tips

Valentin Baev
It's all about Toad

Ben Boise
Toad SC Discussions

Kevin Dalton
Benchmark Factory

Vaclav Frolik  
Toad Data Modeler, Toad Extension for Eclipse

Devin Gallagher
Toad SC discussions

Stuart Hodgins
JProbe Discussions

Julie Hyman
Toad for Data Analysts

  Henrik "Mauritz" Johnson
Toad Tips & Tricks on the "other" Toads
  Mark Kurtz
Toad SC discussions
Daniel Norwood
Tips & Tricks on Toad Solutions
Amit Parikh
Toad for Oracle, Benchmark Factory,Quest Backup Reporter
Debbie Peabody
Toad for Data Analysts
Gary Piper
Toad Reports Manager
John Pocknell
Toad Solutions
Kuljit Sangha
Toad SC discussions
Michael Sass 
Toad for DB2
Matt Wilkins
Toad for Oracle
Brad Wulf
Toad SC discussions
Richard To
SQL Optimization
  Toad Data Modeler Opens in a new window
Data Modeling
 
  Toad Higher Education
How Hi-Ed Uses Toad
  Real Automated Code Testing for Oracle
Quest Code Tester blog
  中文技术资料库
技术文章
 

Blogs

Toad World blogs are a mix of insightful how-tos from Quest experts as well as their commentary on experiences with new database technologies.  Have some views of your own to share?  Post your comments!  Note:  Comments are restricted to registered Toad World users.

Do you have a topic that you'd like discussed?  We'd love to hear from you.  Send us your idea for a blog topic.


By Steven Feuerstein on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:22 PM
Or are they just sociable? Social Media has taken the world by storm, primarily through Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, LinkedIn, etc. And now everyone expects to have access to a network of "friends" wherever they are, through whichever device they are using. This raises an interesting question for those us in the technology world and vendors providing tools in which technologists "live": Does social media/networking...
By Gary Piper on 5/14/2012 8:19 PM
Here we go again! After having written and blogged about this topic a fair bit in the past, having too many managers is a problem I still continue to see all too often. A good example is a site I worked with recently; it had 20+ managers just to run the workflow background processes.

Putting aside the need to address the excessive workflow background processes (which is another problem in its own right) there are major...
By Steven Feuerstein on Monday, May 14, 2012 6:06 AM

We software developers are a very privileged bunch. We don’t have to work in dangerous environments, and our jobs aren’t physically taxing (though carpal tunnel syndrome is always a threat). We are paid to think about things, and then to write down our thoughts in the form of code. This code is then used and maintained by others, sometimes for decades.

Given this situation, I believe we all have a responsibility to write code that can be easily understood and maintained (and, c’mon, let’s admit our secret desires, admired) by the developers who follow in our footsteps. Look at this way: if you have a child, she might grow up to be a programmer. She might even put in time at one of your previous employers. She might actually end up having to maintain code that you wrote.

The choice is yours: avoid mortifying embarrassment either by never putting your name in your code, or by writing code that you would be proud to show to, share with, and inflict on your own flesh and blood.

By Toad Hi-Ed Blog on 5/9/2012 10:20 AM
Everyone celebrates back to school so we are going to celebrate the end of school for a change.  It just sounds better.  With the fiscal year end upon us and the students clambering for summer the IT department is hunkering down.  End of school is when IT gets busy so let Quest Software help you prepare for the time ahead with a great program.  Toad Plus for Higher Education...
By Brad Wulf on 5/7/2012 9:13 AM
One of the major strengths of Benchmark Factory is the ability to Capture and Replay the activity related to a session. This is important because it doesn’t force the user rely on tracefiles or logs to obtain ‘real world’ production data for replay in a test environment. This is important for the following reasons:

Tracefiles may contain multiple user session details It is often difficult to identify which...
By Debbie Peabody on 5/1/2012 4:16 AM
Do you start your reporting process by building tables in a temporary storage? If so, check out this new Toad for Data Analysts feature in Local Storage.
By Amit Parikh on 4/26/2012 10:53 AM
It’s that time of year again when Toad for Oracle takes another step forward in bringing the best of class functionality for the Oracle user. Quest Software recently announced the release of Toad for Oracle v11.5 which includes many important enhancements for Developers and DBAs. One of the areas of functionality that has will be exciting for those Developers looking to improve code quality and incorporate best practices...
By John Pocknell on Thursday, April 26, 2012
Many IT shops today are running a combination of Oracle and IBM DB2, which means they either have to cross-train employees to support both platforms, or hire two sets of employees, each with expertise on a particular DBMS.

The new Oracle compatibility features available with DB2 LUW 9.7 offer an alternative: porting Oracle applications to DB2 for LUW.



Although there are terminological differences between...
By Daniel Norwood on 4/25/2012 5:10 PM

Yep, you read that right... I'l do my best to keep things "magical and revolutionary!" along the way.

By 中文技术资料库 on 4/25/2012 1:16 PM

原文:“A USEFUL NEW RULE FOR UPDATE STATEMENTS”    原文投稿日期:2012年3月23日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By Daniel Norwood on 4/24/2012 3:34 PM
Let’s face it, as cool as our Mac’s are, they’re not cool enough to be top of mind for Oracle. (I think they need another serving of Apple Kool-Aid over there in Redwood Shores…) Anyway, getting things working on Mac OS X isn’t terribly difficult unless you’re still a little wet behind the ears. I’ve been a Mac fan and occasional user for years, but this was my first attempt at configuring it to connect to Oracle. Now that I’ve got it working, I’ll share what I’ve learned and hopefully save a few of you the trouble of stumbling around the interwebs in the dark…
By Steven Feuerstein on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 8:08 AM
I write a PL/SQL 101 column for Oracle Magazine and the March/April 2012 issue focused on Error Management. I received the following letter from a reader; we couldn't fit the whole thing in Oracle Magazine's Q&A section, so I decided to publish it here.



Hello Steven, I've very much...
By Richard To on Monday, April 23, 2012 8:05 AM
I did not use to pay much attention to the update table in an UPDATE statement. I figured that there was not a lot I could do with an update table unless there were complex search conditions. I preferred to focus on the sub-queries that appear on the update table's filtering and the update SET command.  

Today, I want to introduce a new transformation rule that is not implemented in our engine yet, but it is quite...
By Brad Wulf on 4/19/2012 6:56 AM
Toad for Data Analysts Automation interface is an extremely powerful and oftentimes underutilized feature. To demonstrate the power of the Automation Interface I’ve created a simple example that you can extend for your own use. We start by using the Automation Interface Execute Script feature to run a SQL query. This sql query returns a flag value which we will assign to a variable. With the variable assigned, we can use the...
By Daniel Norwood on 4/17/2012 1:13 PM

No, you’re not going crazy… it really is gone. Here’s why.

By Bert Scalzo on Monday, April 09, 2012 8:12 AM
Oracle technologists, database architects, database administrators, and senior database application developers are all very curious people by nature – even more curious than most people. So naturally database oriented issues evoke debates similar to “tastes great, less filling” from the famous beer commercial. You might be surprised by the scope and passion of such database debates. One area getting lots of discussion of recent...
By Michael Sass on 3/26/2012 2:53 AM
One of the main task as a DBA is working with objects. Since there are at least two environments (typically one or more for testing and one for production) DBA’s face the challenge of moving changes done in one environment to one or more other environment(s). Toad helps the DBA to undertake this comprehensive and time-consuming task with two very powerful features.

BTW – the features I am going to present are available...
By Steven Feuerstein on Friday, March 23, 2012 12:41 PM
OOW is the big (enormous, really) blast of a conference/party that Oracle hosts each year in San Francisco. I've been attending these conferences since the late 1980s, and each year it seems to get bigger. Fortunately, Oracle offers a "conference within a conference": Oracle Develop, for those of us developing applications with Oracle technology. I usually spend almost all my time at the Oracle Develop hotel, so even though...
By Bert Scalzo on Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:26 AM
I thought I’d write a quick blog this time and ask/think about what’s your favorite version of Oracle. Of course the proper answer is probably whatever version is mainstream right now – so maybe 11g R2. But what if you could enter Mr. Peabody’s “Way Back” time machine and once again live in any time you so desired. Then what version of Oracle would that be?
By Bert Scalzo on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 6:32 AM

In this part, Bert goes over some database instance checklist items to add to your virtualizatoin checklist.

By Debbie Peabody on 3/21/2012 4:24 AM
This one is a must see! This video covers a full scenario of using all of the new features in TDA 3.0.
By John Pocknell on Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Our next release of Toad for IBM DB2 – version 5.1 is scheduled for June 2012, so I thought I’d give you a quick preview now so you’ll be up to speed when it’s released.
Toad for IBM DB2 5.0 (released in October 2011) introduced improved packaging to match what is available with Toad for Oracle as well as improved platform support for the latest versions of IBM DB2 LUW and z/OS.
By Vaclav Frolik on 3/16/2012 1:06 PM

You asked for it, we listened to you and made it happen. Toad Extension for Eclipse version 1.5.2 contains various Schema Browser improvements.

By 中文技术资料库 on 3/15/2012 1:46 PM

原文: “SQL PATCHES VS SQL PLAN BASELINES” 原文投稿日期:2012年3月12日 星期一
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By Gary Piper on 3/12/2012 11:03 AM
Scheduled requests are one of the mainstays of OEBS concurrent processing.

 

One of the benefits of recurring scheduled requests is they are “set and forget” they just happily run and resubmit without you having to do a thing.

 

The biggest issue I’ve found, and this applies to almost all sites, is the “forget” component. I regularly find scheduled requests that have been running for years that are no longer required, and also duplicate scheduled requests which have come about because someone doesn’t know the original request exists. Both these issues are a waste of processing resources.

...
By Richard To on Monday, March 12, 2012 6:40 AM

Richard discusses why SQL tuning by SQL Plan Baselines is a safe and effective method to improve your SQL performance.

By Debbie Peabody on 3/9/2012 4:53 AM

Have more questions about Cross-Connection Queries?  Here is video FAQ on the subject.

By Dan Hotka on 3/7/2012 11:17 AM

The Plan Table QBlock Name column is used in conjunction with a hint to expose exactly where the sub queries of a SQL statement appear in the Plan Table.

By John Pocknell on Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Over the last decade, the Toad teams have prided themselves on being user driven and responding to the needs of our loyal user community.
Right from Toad’s inception, there has been a Toad community forum which has sought to solicit feedback from users as a way to continuously improve the product, ensure we continue to add value and make sure we continue to be relevant.
 
Ideas for enhancements and new features for Toad for IBM DB2 have historically been captured in a number of ways depending on users’ awareness of what is available. So now there is a brand new, exciting way to capture ideas from our Toad for IBM DB2 users for things you would like to see in the product or for validating ideas we or other users come up with.
By Amit Parikh on 3/5/2012 10:41 AM
Quest Software is pleased to announce that Quest Backup Reporter for Oracle is now bundled as a component of the Toad DBA Suite for Oracle and Toad DBA Suite for Oracle - RAC Edition for no additional cost. As you may already know, the above-mentioned Suites offer a complete Oracle DBA solution that enables you to become more proactive by automating tasks related to administration, maintenance, performance management and change...
By Vaclav Frolik on 3/5/2012 4:26 PM

As many of you know, Toad Extension for Eclipse can be used for development and basic administration of Oracle databases.
The latest Community Edition - version 1.5 - introduced support for PostgreSQL 9. Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS.

 

By Bert Scalzo on Friday, March 02, 2012 11:57 AM
At some point every DBA’s going to be asked if not forced to adopt virtualized databases. Oh yes we can argue until we’re blue in the face about performance worries this and other mostly technical concerns, but we’d simply be “fish swimming upstream”. The business has made a decision and while the business may permit appeals for concessions, those concessions will be neither automatic nor sympathetic. So unless we’re willing...
By Debbie Peabody on 2/27/2012 4:22 AM

See our Advanced Analytics library in Toad for Data Analysts.

By Dan Hotka on 2/23/2012 1:50 PM

New PLAN_TABLE support starting in Oracle10g.

 

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/22/2012 1:23 PM

原文: SQL OPTIMIZER FOR SQL SERVER 8.0 BETA 原文投稿日期:2012221 星期二

作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To

By Steven Feuerstein on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 10:50 AM
Consider the following block:

 

DECLARE

   l_date   DATE;

BEGIN

   l_date := '15-FEB-2011';

END;

 

I declare a date variable and then assign a string to it. Will this block raise an error? Hard to say. It depends on the NLS settings for the default date format – for the database as a whole or for my session. If this string doesn’t match the default, then Oracle will raise...
By Richard To on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:57 AM
After almost a year of development, I would like to announce the beta release of SQL Optimizer for SQL Server 8.0 is now available here: http://sqloptimizersqlserver.inside.quest.com/index.jspa.

To be honest, I was primarily focused on the Oracle version of SQL Optimizer previously. Consequently, we sometimes received complaints from our SQL Server users saying that our tuning engine had not caught up with the SQL Server upgrade. I am confident that the new version of SQL Optimizer will satisfy most SQL Server users’ expectations. 

...
By 中文技术资料库 on 2/19/2012 6:00 PM

原文:“SOME COMMON SQL TUNING RULES - 10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING #7” 原文投稿日期:2010年5月28日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/19/2012 3:46 PM

原文:“SQL BEST PRACTICE IS SQL TUNING? -10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING #5 ”    原文投稿日期:2006年12月7日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/19/2012 2:49 PM

原文: “A SQL THAT RETURNS RECORDS FASTER IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER-10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING #4” 原文投稿日期:2009年8月14日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/19/2012 1:06 PM

原文:“NO SINGLE SQL SYNTAX IS ALWAYS THE BEST - 10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING#3”    原文投稿日期:2009年6月16日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/18/2012 12:19 PM

原文:“10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING #2”    原文投稿日期:2009年4月28日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By Debbie Peabody on 2/17/2012 4:52 AM

If you need to bring together data from disparate databases, try Cross –Connection queries in Toad for Data Analysts!  This blog includes a video to show you how.

By 中文技术资料库 on 2/17/2012 3:06 PM

原文:“10 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS IN SQL TUNING #1” 原文投稿日期:2009年3月13日
作者:虹天软件(珠海)有限公司 杜伟业(Richard To)

By Debbie Peabody on 2/7/2012 6:03 AM
When data is not in the format you need, transform it with Data Cleansing.
By Steven Feuerstein on Friday, February 03, 2012 10:54 AM
Oracle PL/SQL provides the RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR built-in procedure (actually defined in the DBMS_STANDARD package) so that we can communicate application-specific error messages back to our users. When you call this procedure, you provide a negative number between -20999 and -20000, as well as your error message.

Here's an example of calling RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR from inside a trigger, ensuring that employees...
By Gary Piper on 2/2/2012 4:44 PM

I have seen examples of sites with over 50 million rows in the fnd_concurrent_requests_u1 index; a huge waste of space! More importantly however is the problem of poor performance in such a core OEBS activity.

By Matt Wilkins on 2/2/2012 1:14 PM
In my last post I outlined the method for accessing and using Quest Software’s Toad for Oracle Freeware and Toad for MySQL Freeware AMI, available at aws.amazon.com. I explained in detail how to start the instance, how to download and install an Oracle client, and how to make sure Toad Freeware recognizes the client....
By Toad Hi-Ed Blog on 2/1/2012 9:09 AM
Written by Bert Scalzo

As a long time student (BS, MS, PhD and MBA), educator (teaching assistant and adjunct professor) and author (9 books) I’ve spent years championing good database design, administration and development practices. Two tools that I’ve always seen as the “one two punch” to successful database work are Toad Data Modeler and Toad for Oracle. Toad Data Modeler permits one to design a database that’s effective (i.e. meets business requirements) as well as efficient (i.e. performs well). Toad for Oracle then educates and empowers one to both administer and develop successful databases. In fact the Toad family mantra is to increase database productivity with easy to use tools.

...
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