Saturday, March 15, 2008

Free Tools for the SQL Server DBA

Knowing what you don't know will always save you money. Before buying any tool you should consider asking a question, can I get a free tool for my requirement. Search around and analyse . To my surprise I found some companies brand their tool as free but after downloading it turns out to be not free rather free trial version. Don't put off by this. I have done it previously.

Always begin with an assumption that there is free tool that you could use. Do your research. It will save your company a lot of money and will make you a supremo.

Note also some of this free tools may not be user friendly. To mention just one SQLIO from Microsoft. It is not a tool that you just click and go. But have used it many times and very satisfied with the result that I got.

In general, free tools some times can compare with the tools that you spend a lot of money to do the same thing.

In addition, I came across an article written byDavid Bird for SQL server central and it will cover some of free tools that you will be able to use.