New Products, April 2005

DATABASE AUDITING

Step Up Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Guardium announced that its SQL Guard platform now includes a new library of Sarbanes-Oxley and Graham-Leach-Bliley Act auditing reports and assessment tests. The package of auditing solutions helps organizations comply with the latest government auditing regulations. The new auditing library lets you automate such database audit and assessment tasks as monitoring after-hours usage, schema changes, source-application access, repeated unsuccessful logins, and single-user or single-IP address logins. The company also announced the SQL Guard Database Firewall, software that lets you create a baseline of all database-access activities and apply policy-based database access control. Together, the new products help you streamline crucial corporate compliance initiatives and provide a layer of security for safeguarding enterprise databases. Guardium is offering its compliance products together in a bundle called the SQL Guard Compliance Foundation, which includes the SQL Guard Security Suite applications and SQL Guard platform. The Compliance Foundation is priced at $31,995. For more information, contact Guardium at 877-487-9400, [email protected], or http://www.guardium.com.

BACKUP AND RECOVERY

Get Complete Protection for SQL Servers

Sonasoft announced SonaSafe Point-Click Recovery Suite for SQL Server, a centralized management-based database-protection suite that provides automated disk-to-disk backup and recovery through a point-and-click GUI. Administrators can manage multiple target servers through one management console. When you need to perform a recovery, the product automatically determines which files need to be restored and performs the recovery from backup data on internal hard disks. You can back up and recover one database, multiple databases, one SQL Server instance, or an entire SQL Server. The product's features include a template-driven automated backup plan; point-of-failure or point-in-time recovery; a Web-based interface that you can access from anywhere in the world; an automated policy-based purging functionality; and diagnostic capability. SonaSafe Point-Click Recovery suite for SQL Server supports SQL Server 2000 and 7.0. For pricing and other information, contact Sonasoft at 408-927-6200 or http://www.sonasoft.com.

BACKUP AND RECOVERY

Consolidate Backups on 32-Bit or 64-Bit Systems

UltraBac Software announced UltraBac 8.0, backup and disaster-recovery software that lets you create incremental backups so that you can restore damaged or lost data to the point before the loss occurred. The latest release of the solution includes advanced features that make the product even better for datacenters or large, distributed databases. The first improvement users will notice is a feature called UltraCopy, which lets you duplicate tape- or disk-based backups to offsite storage media. In addition, UltraCopy lets you consolidate multiple tape or disk backups to any other removable storage medium. Also new in UltraBac 8.0 is support for Intel and AMD 64-bit processors. Native support for both 64-bit and 32-bit systems allows for seamless backup and recovery in mixed-processor environments. Other new features in this release include differential image backup functionality, support for media pools and barcodes, a centralized SQL-based database indexing option, direct backup and restore support of CD and DVD writer devices, remote autoloader support, firewire device support, throughput throttling, and reporting of bad blocks for worn tapes. Pricing for UltraBac 8.0 starts at $495 per server and includes the ability to back up an unlimited number of workstations. For more information, contact UltraBac Software at 425-644-6000, [email protected], or http://www.ultrabac.com.

DATABASE COMPARISON AND SYNCHRONIZATION

Automate Migration of Database Changes

Extreme Technologies announced dbMaestro Freeware Edition, software that lets you automate migration of structural changes from your SQL Server development environment to production. The software tracks changes to development database objects such as tables, indexes, views, and stored code, then lets you select the required changes and apply them to your production system. The product automatically generates the SQL code necessary for the deployment. You can also use the product to compare, synchronize, and migrate lookup and reference data associated with an application. dbMaestro Freeware Edition is available at no charge at http://www.extreme.co.il or http://www.download.com (keyword dbMaestro). For large enterprises requiring additional capabilities, including comprehensive database versioning, Extreme Technologies offers dbMaestro Professional Edition. For more information, contact Extreme Technologies at 972-03-9248558, [email protected], or http://www.extreme.co.il.

DATABASE COMPARISON AND SYNCHRONIZATION

Add Command Lines and Compression to your SQL Server Tools

Red Gate Software announced the latest version of SQL Bundle Developer Edition, a package of five SQL Server-management tools. The package includes SQL Compare, which lets you compare and synchronize SQL Server database objects; SQL Data Compare, which lets you compare and synchronize data between two databases; DTS Compare, which compares DTS packages, jobs, and logins; SQL Packager, which packages database schema and contents; and SQL Comparison and Synchronization Toolkit, which provides access to command lines and APIs in SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare, and SQL Packager. The newest release of the tools includes new command lines in the SQL Toolkit that let developers and DBAs produce repeatable and configurable synchronization tasks that can run alone or from inside other applications. You can use command lines to schedule synchronizations and integrate database comparison and synchronization tasks into build processes. The other major new feature in SQL Bundle Developer Edition is compression in SQL Packager. The new compression algorithms reduce storage overhead and simplify deploying and distributing databases over a network or VPN. Pricing for SQL Bundle Developer Edition starts at $990. For more information or a 14-day trial of any tool, contact Red Gate Software at 866-733-4283, 44-870-160-0037, [email protected], [email protected], or http://www.red-gate.com.

PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND TUNING

Monitor Database Performance

Imceda announced Speed Coefficient 2.0, software that helps developers and DBAs monitor SQL Server 2000 and 7.0 performance by providing reports that evaluate database activity. The product uses a dedicated work database on each server to store all required functions and trace tables. In the newest release, the product installs all functions in the work or shared databases, separate from production data. The new Trace Activity screen lets users easily see all traces running on a server, whether those traces originate from Speed Coefficient or another tool such as SQL Server Profiler. Users can examine, start, pause, and stop traces. All traces for a server reside in a unified object store for the server, not with production data. And the new release lets DBAs run simultaneous traces against one database or different databases. In addition, Speed Coefficient 2.0 traces now include a snapshot of system-table metadata, so you can run analyses of system tables at any time; express modes for the traces and analysis wizards speed up those functions; the product's reports display in XML format; and a new SQL Health section monitors CPU and performance counters and makes query-tuning recommendations. A free evaluation copy of Speed Coefficient 2.0 is available at Imceda's Web site. For pricing or other information, contact Imceda at 888-763-7685, 781-229-6300, [email protected], or http://www.imceda.com.