Item: dbForge Studio (Edge)
Rating: 8
Author: Chris Oros

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As part of an Oracle Utilities Suite upgrade implementation, dbForge Studio is being used to compare schemas between our current production environments and test upgraded environments. This tool has been essential in identifying DDL, index, partitioning, and PK and constraint errors. Because of our ability to quickly compare schema details between environments, we are able to quickly respond to Oracle SRs to ask about discrepancies we see between our base version installs and their product documentation. Identification of missing columns, columns with incorrect data types and character lengths, and missing tables have been key to keeping the infrastructure and data conversion side of our project on track.

Pros and Cons

Quick, high-level comparison of thousands of tables and their details
Intuitive identification of findings, such as discrepancies, inconsistencies, things that are equal, and source/target environment changes

The ability to parameterize searches more would be advantageous. For example, being able to specify to only look for certain columns, certain data type changes, etc.
The output reports from dbForge are very plain and could contain more detail, and perhaps be structured more like a pivot table form Excel

Return on Investment

Time saved is hard to measure, but perhaps weeks of cumulative analysis has been saved by having the application able to quickly compare schematics and data.
Removing estimations and assumptions around deployed environments is also hard to measure. For example, instead of deploying a new patch, and trusting that high-level queries based on previous exercises will catch discrepancies, dbForge is able to examine all tables, views, indexes, jave components, triggers, and really any other common database object.

Alternatives Considered

DBeaver

Although we had to pay licensing fees to use dbForge, one of the main reasons we chose dbForge is compliance-related: we did not want to use freeware to analyze our database, since we are a utility company that has personally identifiable information in our databases.

Additionally, dbForge had additional features that DBeaver did not, and a smoother application interface for non-DBA expert users to navigate.

Key Insights

Do you think dbForge Studio (Edge) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with dbForge Studio (Edge)'s feature set?

Yes

Did dbForge Studio (Edge) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of dbForge Studio (Edge) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy dbForge Studio (Edge) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Acrobat DC, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM), Oracle Customer Care and Billing

Likelihood to Recommend

Whenever a user or DBA wants to compare schematics between two environments, dbForge is extremely helpful. This is useful during version or framework upgrades, a database upgrade, patch implementations, service package implementations, or any time to environments would be different.

The time it would take to write and execute queries, and then compare is exponentially longer than it takes with dbForge, where this is done and you have an application that allows you to quickly identify incongruities.

Support Rating

Although experience here is limited, as only one question has been asked and answered promptly, the registration and licensing process was very smooth and professional. There are forums online that discuss dbForge issues, as well as a Facts and Questions section on dbForge's website, so product support does seem to exist if needed.

Quick Database Comparisons

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with dbForge Studio for MySQL