IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs. Toad Database Developer Tools

If you have several SQL servers and don't have a lot of time or resources to constantly monitor them, SQLdm will be very helpful. For one or two servers, it might be overkill. All of our servers are virtual, so having a tool that can monitor host metrics as well as guest metrics is a plus as well.

Incentivized

Toad for Oracle is very well suited for all Oracle implementations, be it single instance or RAC. It is best suited for use of Oracle DBA, Developer and Database Engineers. I don't recommend Toad for Oracle for Project Managers or Solution Architects. This can be a pricier choice for these people. They can do fine with free options like SQL Developer.

Incentivized

• Database query optimization.
• Monitoring of databases in real time.
• Performance analysis and trends in the database.

Incentivized

• Toad is a de-facto standard tool for data developers and analysts. Generally speaking it provides almost every function needed to manage data in EDW with great performance and stability.
• The nature of clinical data is big-sized: one table may have billions of rows. Toad provides critical functions to manage SQLs, e.g. Top SQL that can monitor and manage SQLs using CPU power and network bandwidth, so that EDW administrator can optimize ETL operations in the best efficiency.
• Many of our data analysts are not computer science backgrounded (having clinical / nursing background). Toad provides great auditing tools such as Tuning Lab or SQL Scanner, so that data analysts can train themselves with guidance of the tool.

Incentivized

• Windows client has some issues. When you have small time intervals for your data collection, it can cause the client to become unresponsive and require you to restart it.
• It takes more time to get the web client running than it does to get the windows client running.
• The visualizations have been the same for the last eight years--could use a little bit of a refresh.

Incentivized

• The power and control it gives is at the same time kind of a negative thing. There's too many options available, even when you don't need them. For simple database operations it's sometimes easier to just use SQL Developer since navigation is way more intuitive and easy.
• Related with the above: there is a steep learning curve. However, since this is the main tool for any Oracle developer, this is not that much of a problem.
• If I remember well, Toad used to be free, some 20 years ago. Or at least had a free version. It would be nice to have a free version. The dedicated Oracle developers and DBA's won't use the free version, but all the rest of us developers might use it instead of SQL Developer. It would make communications between everybody somewhat easier.

Incentivized

It is the preferred tool for our organization.

Incentivized

I give is an 8 because nothing is a 10 and there is always room for improvement. I believe the user who is not as technologically inclined would be better suited with an easier way to identify the options for setting the layout up for Toad's GUI. To some it is very cumbersome and confusing.

Incentivized

I give the overall support for Toad for Oracle a 10/10. This is because whenever there has been an issue with this software, our team has got an immediate response. The same can not be said for similar software. The most recent example of this is when we needed to renew our licenses. Some employees were unable to log in to code with the given license key. Support was able to resolve the issue quickly.

Incentivized

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is an excellent tool, however I think Solarwinds Database Perfromance Analyzer is a slightly stronger more well rounded product

Incentivized

Toad is much better than Tableau query writer. Tableau is not intuitive and requires knowledge of proprietary database language to fully implement. Tableau does not perform as quickly and accurately as Toad. Toad is very easy and slim to install. Additional hardware is often required to run Tableau smoothly. Support for Tableau is even more expensive than Toad support.

Incentivized

• It saves me a significant amount of time each week, freeing me up for other important tasks. I couldn't possibly monitor each server individually to the extent that SQLdm does.
• With the wealth of information I can get to easily, I can be more proactive in taking care of my environments rather than reactive. The times when other people notice something happening before I do are few and far between.

Incentivized

• Quick and easy query development helps reduce man-hours in a project which converts to real dollars.
• Query analysis and tuning result in low database overhead and low latency, thus translating into real dollars because a system can thus handle more requests from customers.
• Ease of use makes it easy to deploy greenhorns in projects with minimal training, thus helping save money. Otherwise menial and simple jobs would have required experienced DBAs.

Incentivized