Embarcadero enhances SQL Server backup

Embarcadero Technologies on Monday is unveiling its DBArtisan Workbench 8.0 database administration tool, featuring enhanced backup capabilities for Microsoft SQL Server databases and support for performance metrics in the Oracle10g database.

DBArtisan Workbench provides database administrators with a single console for proactive management of multiple database environments, Embarcadero said.

With the Backup Analyst for Microsoft SQL Server tool, which is a separately priced option for DBArtisan, SQL Server files can be compressed to 80 percent to 90 percent of the actual file size, said Robin Schumacher, Embarcadero vice president of product management. “The other nice compression feature is less physical I/O. We’re seeing reduced backup times in the neighborhood of 50 percent,” Shumacher said.

The backup capabilities being offered for SQL Server may be extended at some point to other databases, such as IBM DB2 or Oracle, Schumacher said. 

Also featured in Version 8.0 is extension of storage, performance, capacity, and backup management to current versions of IBM DB2 Universal Database, Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, Oracle10g, and SQL Server. Version 8.0 offers enhanced performance management capabilities for Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), and also supports response and wait time metrics in Oracle10g.

“A DBA can use our tool to monitor a complete [RAC] cluster so they can see which nodes are up, which nodes are down, which nodes are under-utilized or over-utilized, all in the same view,” Schumacher said.

Version 8.0 also features enhanced historical analysis capabilities for 10g to detect, for example, when there was spike in database activity, Schumacher said.

A user of DBArtisian touted the extended view of database statements in Version 8.0. “In the past, it gave only a truncated view, maybe the first 10 or 20 characters of a select statement,” said Alan Woodling, DBA at a major restaurant chain, who asked that the name of his employer not be published. Now, the entire statement is shown, providing for an expanded view and improved analysis of problems, according to Woodling.

He also cited improved performance in the product, which his company uses for administering SQL Server instances running on approximately 80 to 90 servers. 

“DBArtisan has been my big gun for troubleshooting on these databases. I’m on a single-server database administrator, and it does all the things that [Microsoft’s Enterprise Manager tool] could ever do, and I have so little time that I have folks that need help, need answers right now, and I have to be able to have a tool on my belt that I can analyze a problem, suggest a fix or fix it myself within minutes,” Woodling said. “DBArtisan does that for me.”

Woodling said his company, however, still utilizes Enterprise Manager for backup and restore, since the company has a history with it.

Version 8.0 also features within it an embedded Web client for the company’s Performance Center product, so a DBA can pull up the Web client in DBArtisan and track performance of all systems being monitored by Performance Center, if the user site also has deployed Performance Center, Shumacher said.

DBArtisan Workbench 8.0 starts in price at $1,895 for a single database platform. Backup Analyst for SQL Server costs $295 per server license.