Presents your 
SQL SERVER E-NEWSLETTER for April 6, 2004

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Give your budget a reprieve with these free tools
 
We all know what it's like to need new tools and not have the budget 
for them. Fortunately, there's some great software that's available for 
free. This week, I'm featuring three of my favorite free software products. 
 
TOAD 
 
The amazing utility called TOAD, which was written originally for 
Oracle DBAs, has migrated to SQL. Even if you regularly use Enterprise 
Manager to manage and maintain your databases, TOAD is worth a serious 
look. Though TOAD doesn't do everything that Enterprise Manager does, 
it makes inspecting SQL objects a breeze. 
http://ct.com.com/click?q=f3-Lj_gQJOVjsbhzYkQON_sK5ProoAd 
 
Figure A shows TOAD running, with a table selected and ready for 
modification. You can alter the table, as well as its indexes, 
constraints, triggers, grants, dependencies, and CREATE script. You 
also have the same control over views, data types, stored procedures, 
logins, and much more. 
http://ct.com.com/click?q=53-n8UdINnCp4BMXxdQuxJ~_I0ozn2i 
 
SQLCHECK 
 
Idera offers the cool utility called SQLcheck, which performs numerous 
checks on the state of your database(s). 
http://ct.com.com/click?q=c7-KGu3QLPUxlduB47cLCVHTjcgheZi 
 
Figure B illustrates SQLcheck in action on a server connected to my 
network. You can readily switch among servers and instances, or view 
processes, the error log, the list of scheduled jobs, the connections, 
and much more. 
http://ct.com.com/click?q=14-5MPAIF~JaNJNVZuiB7tKIXHvq1I2 
 
DDL ARCHIVE UTILITY 
 
Microsoft hasn't integrated SQL Server with Visual SourceSafe (VSS). As 
a result, several commercial third-party products offer this 
integration. One such product is the DDL Archive Utility (ArchUtil). 
Although it doesn't provide the transparency of some of the commercial 
products, it does offer you the ways and means to store your DDL in 
VSS. 
http://ct.com.com/click?q=22-xNdrIrd1r_RbVXfOeio4VFr5ccOu 
 
ArchUtil, which requires XML 3.0, generates nicely formatted T-SQL 
Scripts for database objects and then archives the scripts to a 
SourceSafe repository. SourceSafe holds the complete history of all 
changes made to all database objects on the server. This is especially 
useful to developers who might have several versions of a single 
database (e.g., development, testing, and production). By generating 
scripts for each database, you can differentiate between them easily. 
This provides easy recovery, forward or backward. It's simple to roll 
your new stored procedures, views, and so on forward onto the testing 
server and then to the production server(s). 
 
NOTE: For readers working in the .NET environment, Bill Wunder has 
released a .NET version that considerably enhances his previous work. 
You'll see the updated version on his Web site. 
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/products/bwunder/archiveutility/ 
 
Arthur Fuller has been developing database applications for more than 
20 years. He frequently works with Access ADPs, Microsoft SQL 2000, 
MySQL, and .NET. 

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CORRECTION 
 
In last week's tip, "Creating joins across multiple databases," the 
author left out an essential element from the query: the owner. When 
performing cross-database joins, three elements are required: database, 
object-owner, and object. Thus, to obtain some data from another 
database, your syntax must look like this: 
 
SELECT CompanyName, Orders.* 
  FROM Northwind.dbo.Shippers  -- this is the second database, 
requiring the 
owner name 
  JOIN Orders -- this table is in the current database 
  ON Orders.ShipVia = Northwind.dbo.Shippers.ShipperID  -- 
 again requiring the owner name 
 
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. 
 
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