Agile Database Techniques: Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer

Chapter 16. Tools for Evolutionary Database Development

A fool with a tool is still a fool.

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Agile DBAs need to adopt, build, and/or modify a collection of tools in order to be effective. Furthermore, tools are just a start; they also need an effective technical environment in which to use them. This environment should comprise several "sand-boxes" in which you will work. Finally, agile DBAs will discover that they need several different types of scripts to support their development efforts.

This chapter explores:

• Tools

• Sandboxes

• Scripts

Tools

Having an effective toolset is a critical success factor for any software development effort. Table 16.1 lists categories of tools, the target audience for the tool, how you would use the tool, and links to a representative sample of such tools. Chances are very good that you already have many of these tools in-house, although you will undoubtedly need to obtain several of them.

Table 16.2 lists tools that to my knowledge do not exist yet, at least at the time of this writing, that are needed to support the agile data method. My hope that we will see both commercial and open source tools available in the near future, particularly tools that support database refactoring (as discussed in Chapter 12).

Table 16.1. Potential Tools That Support Agile Data Efforts

TOOL CATEGORY	ROLE	PURPOSE	EXAMPLES
CASE tool — development modeling	Application developer, agile DBA	To support your application development efforts.	Artisan: www.artisansw.com Poseidon: ...