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Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials

Score9.5 out of 10

59 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials?

Redgate's SQL Toolbelt Essentials includes industry-standard tools for SQL Server development & deployment, enabling users to include SQL Server databases in agile processes and enabilng developers to embed robust and scalable development practices.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials.
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Essential tool belt for data developers

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use SQL toolbelt for data development, research and data management. I like the tools like SQL Prompt for formatting, SQL Search for searching the database for certain keywords, SQL Compare to compare schema between different environments and deploying changes from Dev to production environment using the script generator, SQL Source Control to commit schema changes to github.

Pros

  • SQL Search and SQL Data compare are pretty good tools. SQL Search helps with keyword search in the database object names and in the stored proc codes.
  • SQL Data Compare tool helps me do a comparison of schema changes between dev environment and production. I can pick what objects need to be deployed to production, generate a script to run on the production environment.

Cons

  • SQL Source Control needs some improvement. Even after getting help from Redgate customer service, it was not able to identify the users who made changes to the schema. It is still a good tool to identify the objects that are changed since last commit to github, and allows to commit changes for versioning.

Return on Investment

  • It saves time on data development and management and therefore helps with work life balance.

Other Software Used

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), Microsoft Visual Studio, Python IDLE

Redgate SQL Compare is great.

Incentivized
Josh Sayers
Sr. Software Engineer in Information Technology at All Covered (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Allows selecting objects for deployment.
  • Table and owner mapping is also a nice touch.
  • Great number of options for customizing the deployment script being generated.

Cons

  • My tool belt sometimes loses it's license forcing me to fiddle with it to get it working again.

Return on Investment

  • It speeds up my database deployments significantly.
  • It also prevents changes from getting lost and reduces rework.

Alternatives Considered

Visual Studio IDE

Other Software Used

Redgate SQL Data Compare

Redgare SQL Compare saves us time and money

Incentivized
Steven Gockley, MBA, MCSAView profile
DBA / Sr. Data Analyst in Information Technology at Boostability (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • UI is very intuitive.
  • SDK is flexible.
  • Lightweight and fast. Easily handles hundreds to thousands of objects in a single database.

Cons

  • UI is a little outdated.
  • It does automap columns but, when it comes to object renaming it would be nice to have more functionality. We tend to just do renames manually.

Return on Investment

  • Makes deployment fairly simple. Cutting our deployment time down.
  • With the SDK, we can customize our deployment process very quickly and easily.
  • History is not great, it does create scripts you can go back and see but it would be nice to have a quicker version view by object to save time.

Alternatives Considered

dbForge Studio for SQL Server

Redgate SQL Compare from the DBA perspective

Incentivized
Kevin R. ZakoskiView profile
Database Engineer III in Information Technology at LTCG (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Ease of use, doesn't require a lot knowledge or experience to use the tool.
  • UI is easy to navigate with several options filter content and results are grouped by content which makes comparing differences easy to find. Differences are also color coded and highlighted in code windows so you can pinpoint issues quickly.
  • Ability to pick and choose which items you want to sync at a push of a button directly to the database or generate the necessary code snippet needed to deploy to multiple databases using a deployment process.

Cons

  • Would like more filter options, like just looking for index differences between databases and tables and not seeing all the other differences that may exist in other components like triggers, extended properties, etc.
  • A 'Golden Copy', I compare multiple databases that are similar but not exactly the same but you're only can compare 2 databases at a time. I'd like to have the ability to save components from multiple sources to make a golden copy but also have the option to compare the 3 the same time.

Return on Investment

  • Reduced SLA penalties by identifying missing indexes that caused performance to degrade over time.
  • Provides a low cost secondary verification check after release deployments to insure all objects have been deployed successfully.
  • Easy to use tools with no additional training overhead to get the most out of the tool.

Other Software Used

Redgate SQL Data Compare

Redgate SQL Compare: the only SQL comparison tool you'll ever need!

Incentivized
Richard DaviesView profile
Senior Web Application Developer in Information Technology at City of Portland (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Simple and easy comparison of database schemas and data. Differences can be copied or synced from one database to another with a click of a button.
  • You can save "projects" so that you can easily rerun a previous comparison whenever you need to.
  • It has a very simple, easy to learn interface. I've never needed to read any documentation or watch any tutorials in order to figure out how to do something.

Cons

  • I honestly can't think of anything I don't like or anything I would change.

Return on Investment

  • It's reduced errors and bugs associated with deploying new application features and forgetting to apply required database changes (or incorrectly applying them).
  • It's made deploying new features a quicker task, eliminating the often laborious task of synchronizing schemas and data across databases.
  • These sometimes complex queries and operations can easily be performed by any developer and don't require the involvement of a database administrator to perform.

Other Software Used

Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote