Competition: What’s your favorite Redgate tool?

Roseanna

Hello everyone,

Enter our competition to win a Pluralsight subscription 

At Redgate, we’re big on leveling up our skills and helping each other to grow and improve.

To help you level up your skills, we’re giving you the chance to win a 3-month subscription to Pluralsight* plus Redgate goodies.

To enter our prize draw, please answer this question in the thread below: ‘What’s your favorite Redgate tool and why?’

The competition closes on 31 August and the winner will be randomly selected from the entries received.

Good luck!

Roseanna

*Pluralsight is a technical skills platform that provides web development, IT certification and online training that helps you move forward with the right technology and the right skills. 

jermyh_controlup

SQL Prompt by far!!!
It saves time more then any other tool in DBA/DB Developer day-to-day tasks!
It makes order and adds a real valuable info enrichment

jboyer

SQLPrompt... cannot code without it!

Jeff Moden

I don't use SQL Prompt.  I used to work on a whole lot of different systems for many different companies and a lot of them did use it so I never picked up the habit so I wouldn't get used to using it and possibly being lost without it.  Who knows?  It could become a favorite tool.

For now, though, and for  the last 10 years, SQL Compare has been my favorite RedGate tool.  The methodology we currently use for final checks after UAT is to do a restore of the production database(s) affected and do the full database deployment on that.  Then, we do a compare between that and the production database.  We also have a rigid standard for how the flower box of code must be laid out especially when it comes to revisions.  Yeah... I know that may sound stupid for this day and age but comparing the flower box with those revision tracking comments have saved our hinnies more than once because people can't seem to handle trunks right for SQL especially for long term projects that aren't even close to being CICD.

It's a whole lot easier than pawing through trunks and branches and all sorts of other stuff to make sure that there is no regressive code and, at the same time, ensure that everything actually has been both peer reviewed and reviewed by a DBA.

hannu

SQLPrompt -- i just can't work without it , saves me tons of time 

gbe

SQL Prompt too!

deboraht007

SQL Compare has saved me so much time and effort in numerous situations, but day to day it's SQL Prompt, hands down.

Sc0tt

SQL Compare by far, saved hundreds of hours of testing while migrating servers! 

deepsompura

Sql Prompt is my favorite tool.. 

gnbfilho

SQL Prompt! I get desperate when I have to code without it!

iSoft

Sql Prompt , every developer need it !

Jimbog

SQL Dependency Tracker is a long time favorite. Is it still free?

rob_wingate

I have been using SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare, and SQL Multi Script since around 2007 and it would be hard to live without any of them! I would cry if I had to

Marc_M

SQL Monitor, helped me find & resolve issues on production databases that had existed for a long time.

karnatibharathkumar

I liked sql data compare a lot. With this lot of ours manual efforts saved and our data is in sync. We developed various automations using powershell and sql data compare to do automatic data compares. we are in process of leveraging sql compare tool as well. 

Kev

We have SQL Toolbelt 
SQLPrompt  - All day everyday it saves so much time
SQLCompare - great tool to assist in generating change scripts from Dev to Prod
SQLSourceControl - greet tool helping is with change management in our BI env
SQL Data Generator - Just started using this tool. it has limited use for us but very helpful when i need to fill a table with some random test data 

JBSS

SQL Compare, hands down. 
Just saves so much time deploying changes in development DB's to Live dbs.

SOlson

most used: SQL Search, followed by SQL Source Control

lupji

SQL Monitor by far the most useful tool. This is my best friend as I am a DBA. 
Can't thank you guys enough.

Udit1995

SQL Change Automation and SQL Clone are two of my favorite redgate tools.
With SQL Change Automation we successfully managed versioning of database having 15000+ objects. The speed with which this software reads the schema is exceptional, Also it creates migration scripts where sequence is automatically generated.
SQL Clone helped us to create replica of database for various environment and best thing about SQL Clone is that size of the clone generated is comparatively very less than the original copy.

LouisSomers

SQL Source Control is my favorite by far, Having the whole schema neat and tidy split up into separate folders and files, and being able to trace changes back to bugs or features, and see who implemented those changes, when and why... That's so valuable!

Without this ability we would absolutely require to build regression test automation in order to solve bugs flipflopping each other over time (fix of bug A causes bug B and vice versa where the bugs would swap existence in following releases). Regression tests are great, but using the Annotate / Blame feature of a source control tool can provide a faster route and save a ton of time and confusion.

Guenter

SQL Prompt for hourly needs, SQL Source Control for daily needs.
Without the one I couldn't read code produced by others (long ago) and produce code readably by others (now).
Without the other I'd be lost in a dev database used by all developers simultaneously.

mastersson

We have close to 100 different databases, many of which have some specific deployment requirements to ignore particular objects, Redgate's tooling particularly the combination of Sql Source Control with the DLM automation tools, allows for flexibility and filtering of files as well as comparison options!

DevendraSingh

sql prompt

MaterekeT

SQLPrompt -saves me lots of coding time 

ProMi

SQL Prompt

SocialExodus

SQL Prompt, hands down.  I'd buy my own license if my company gets stingy on providing it lol

JonathanC

SQL Prompt, followed closely by SQL Compare. Both are critical to my job functions.

Steve_77777

SQL Prompt!  I never get tired of singing its praises.  Feel like such a newbie if I'm VM'd to a server without it.

SQL Search gets an honorable mention.

You'd think MS would cook the functionality of these into SSMS so a big THANK YOU to Redgate for filling that gap.

mmcdonald

SQLPrompt.  The auto complete -- check.  Dump directly to Excel ("new" format) -- check.  Procedure parameters -- Check.  Formatting -- check.  Drag/drop -- check.  Save tabs -- check.

HUGE time saver -- CHECK

SQL Search is a great frequently used freebie

manjuke

SQL Prompt