News

Toad for Oracle 11 Adds Code Analysis Tools

• By John K. Waters
• September 27, 2011

Earlier this month Quest Software released version 11 of the Toad for Oracle database management solution. The new version comes with something extra just for developers: a new code analysis feature designed to provide a more flexible and intuitive way to perform code reviews, according to the company.

"This is the component we're most excited about in this release," said John Whittaker, Quest senior manager of product marketing. "We're enabling developers and development teams to focus on following coding standards and best practices that enable them to do instant error correction and code validation right within the editor. As they're writing code, it will highlight/flag coding violations. No longer are you running against a set of coding at the end of the development cycle; the editor is actually in-stream. Plus, organizations can set their own coding standards."

This feature also allows managers of dev teams to assess code quality across an entire project, which, Whittaker adds, "helps to minimize unplanned development cycles that disrupt dev teams, cost money, and introduce embarrassment to the process."

The company is also bragging about new features in Toad for Oracle 11 for managing database heath more efficiently, including new Oracle and virtualized DB checks and an automated reporting capability across all managed DBs. Quest has also tweaked the editor itself, with an emphasis on time-saving aids and enhanced developer workflow. And a simple security enhancement -- the ability to choose "read-only" connections -- reduces the risk of inadvertent changes to a production database.

The Toad for Oracle product line has been around for nearly 15 years, and Quest currently claims more than two million licensed users of the product worldwide. The company credits its longevity, at least in part, to a fierce independence.

"Unlike platform vendors, we have no stake in a particular database and no potential conflicts of interests," Whittaker said. "We don't care about your platform; we'll help you satisfy your database development, performance, and administration requirements, regardless."

Quest breaks down its Toad product line by job function -- Whittaker called them "personas." There's a developer version, a DBA version, and an analyst version.

"Our approach focuses each of the product offerings against particular aspects of each of those persona types," he said. "For developers, for example, quality, performance, and maintainability are the most important things they want to get out of the tool base, and we've aligned a version to match those aspects. For the DBA, it's maintenance, performance, and mitigating the impact of change. For the analyst, it's about access to the databases, the ability to brows and query across DBMSs, and the ability to provide reports and information to support business requirements."

Toad for Oracle 11 is generally available now. More information is available on Quest's Toad page here.