SolarWinds has announced the availability of SolarWinds DBA xPress as a free tool. For data professionals who need to understand how a data environment is visually structured, DBA xPress intuitively helps compare, synchronise, script, and navigate data and schemas, enabling data pros to more seamlessly adopt DataOps, automate releases and simplify Microsoft SQL Server cloud migrations.
According to SolarWinds, as more organisations seek the benefits of DataOps strategies, it will be imperative to deliver value through data. DBA xPress is aimed at helping tech pros tackle this so they can move closer to implementing a successful DataOps strategy.
“As digital transformation continues to accelerate across industries, we’re seeing more businesses start to prioritize their move to the cloud. But as teams—especially database managers — start to break down cloud migration requirements, it quickly becomes apparent how time-consuming and costly it can be,” said Rohini Kasturi, chief product officer, SolarWinds.
“To succeed in migrating from one environment to another, teams need to optimise their data to maximise the performance of cloud-hosted databases and adopt solutions that enable DataOps practices to drive efficiency and productivity. We’re hoping to kickstart and simplify this optimization process for DBAs, DevOps teams, tech pros, and business leaders alike by offering DBA xPress for free.”
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DBA xPress helps data teams understand schema and data differences and data dependencies as part of the database re-architecture process when preparing for Microsoft SQL Server cloud migrations. Data pros need to manage moving code and data from on-prem to cloud environments — especially in an organisation’s change management pipeline from application development to production — and the ability to automatically compare data and schemas ensure successful migrations.
According to respondents in The SolarWinds Query Report 2021: Database Priorities and Pitfalls, DataOps offers several benefits, including functional benefits such as increased efficiency/productivity among teams; reduced manual effort; automated management processes; and enabling faster access to actionable business intelligence/decision making.
However, while the benefits are clear, implementation is the biggest barrier to greater DataOps adoption. Respondents reported a lack of proper training/education/tooling (44 per cent) and a lack of resources/budget (44 per cent) as the leading challenges to implementing DataOps, followed closely by difficulty securing buy-in from business leadership (33 per cent).
DBA xPress highlights include the ability to:
- Compare databases and synchronize the schema and data within them
- Automate schema and data synchronization via command line interface (CLI)
- Analyse dependencies and connections among tables, users, functions, and security policies
- Browse the content of SQL Server databases, access the scripts for each object, and export them
