Wednesday 26 September 2012

Which tools does a DBA need to carry out his tasks?

Below is the list of tools and their functionalities that a database administrator uses.You are expected
to know about these.

1)SQLPLUS 
This is the tool provided by oracle and comes automatically when you install oracle server or oracle
client. This is the tool which you use to connect to the database and execute your sql queries and get
the required information from the database.The drawback of this tool is it doesnt give the data in a
good and user friendly format. You should know different sqlplus format commands to format the
data correctly. Then you can see the information very cleanly and orderly.
 

10 things what you can do with sqlplus are1)execute sql statements 2)format your results 3)execute scripts 4)execute stored
procedures,functions,packages 5)display the database parameters with the show command
6)shutdown and startup a database 7)connect to a remote database on a different server 8)Create
any database objects 9)Create a database 10)All database administration activities.

 2)TOAD or SQL Developer 
This is a tool from a company called quest software.This tool does all the things which the
SQLPLUS tool does. In addition this tool has lot of other functionalities to monitor the database.The
results are also formatted very well.You dont have to worry about formatting the result sets.Lots of
oracle developers and administrators use this tool and is considered very very useful. So to
summarize you can use this tool to connect to the database and execute your sql queries and get all
the information.You can save the result sets in different formats.
 

10 things you can do with TOAD1)execute sql statements 2)save your results in different formats 3)execute scripts 4)execute stored
procedures,functions,packages 5)All database administration activities 6)monitor database sessions
7)Create database objects 8)View the code for different objects in user friendly windows.9)Very
useful for oracle developers to design and develop databases 10)Performing trace of sessions.

 

3)EXCEED or WINSCP or TUNNELIER  
This is a tool used to connect to a unix server from your machine. Suppose imagine that your
database is on a Unix server. You want to log into that server.How will you do that? You can use
this tool called "Exceed" and provide the name of  the unix server and your username and
password.Then it will connect to the server and opens a window for you where you can see the
database information and other information about the server.
 

Things you can do with EXCEED1)connect to unix servers 2)ftp data to unix servers 3)Use different secure methods to connect to
unix servers like ssh,telnet,slogin etc

 4)REFLEXION 
This is a similar tool like Exceed. This is also used to connect to the unix server. Dont worry if you
dont know much about these tools. Atleast just remember what these tools are used for and it
doesnt take much time to learn these as these are used just to connect to the unix server.

 Things you can do with REFLEXION1)connect to unix servers 2)ftp data to unix servers 3)Use different secure methods to connect to
unix servers like ssh,telnet,slogin etc

5) PUTTY 
This a tool to connect to the Database Server from command line interface.We can use this tool if we are not going to have a GUI credentials.We can do all the tasks on Database using this tool.
6) VNCVIEWERThis is a tool to connect to the Database Server using GUI.It helps us to installations and configurations on a remote Server with user friendly access.

6)Oracle Enterprise ManagerThis is a tool provided by oracle to do lot of database administration activities using a graphical user
interface.
 

Things you can do with enterprise manager1)All database administration activities including backups 2)Lot of graphical screens to perform the
administration activities 3)Lot of graphical screens having access to different views that help in
performance tuning 4)Enterprise manager grid console in 10g has vast capabilities to manage all
databases in a company from one weblink. 5)Enterprise manager 10g grid console can use agents
installed on individual servers to gather information about the databases and the servers and to show
the information in a user friendly way. 6)Can be used to schedule jobs on the database server to
perform data processing , administration activities.7)Can configure alerts to send automatic emails to
the DBA whenever any database problems exist.