PLATINUM SQL-Station Integrate every stage of your server-side code development process in a common, visual environment   Build Internet, intranet, and other database applications easily   Improve application performance through enhanced server-side programming and optimization   Create, edit, test, debug, tune, and execute any database object in and for multiple server environments   Use SCC-compliant tools, including PLATINUM CCC/Harvest, for change management   Complement Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, and ObjectPro/2000 RAD efforts

The leading edge always suffers from a skills shortage. The more crucial it becomes to implement complex business logic in database server-side code, the harder it becomes to find and keep experienced database programmers. And this dilemma places more emphasis than ever on your tool choice. The right tool can both leverage experience and compensate for inexperience. It can empower the learner and exhilarate the guru. SQL-Station is the premier development environment for database programmers. It relieves experienced database programmers of the tedium of repetitive coding, offers surgically precise debugging tools, and provides tuning instruments that reach far beyond Oracle's performance statistics and plan options. On the other hand, for programmers in training, SQL-Station's integrated development environment significantly shortens the learning curve. It takes far less time to learn how to write, debug, and optimize server-side database code when the functions are closely knit together and you have immediate access to a Help Index Browser. Learning to manage the development environment is also a snap.
 
And with a complete set of integrated server-side programming and SQL tuning tools available for both individual or team work, guru and novice alike can easily improve the quality and performance of web and client/server database applications and maximize IS service levels in the process.
 

 
PLATINUM SQL-Station is an integrated, full-cycle development environment for server-side database applications.

Deliver Better Database Applications Easily
SQL-Station helps you develop and maintain applications that really perform. Now, for the first time, you can develop and test stored procedures that communicate with Oracle over the web and even launch web database applications from an integrated environment.
 
SQL-Station supports object creation, versioning, and team development, testing, debugging, SQL tuning, and execution. Simply click a button to transition among its major components without exiting the SQL-Station development environment. A powerful GUI brings all the components together in an Intelligent Workspace. It knows what task you are performing and gives you the right menu bar for it — automatically. SQL-Station is amazingly easy to use, yet its components are sophisticated and powerful leaders in the server-side market. They are: Coder, for code creation and execution, Debugger, for fixing and testing code, Detector, for finding problem SQL on the client, Plan Analyzer for finding problem SQL on the server and fixing it, and Code Manager for team development.
 

 
Create and Maintain SQL Objects the Easy Way
With Coder, you can easily create and edit any server-side objects (tables, stored procedures, triggers, and Oracle8 objects). SQL-Station Coder simplifies the process through code-generation wizards, report wizards, a catalog browser, and an unparalleled editing facility. Coder takes care of syntax and other details, so you can work more productively on the big issues.
 
With Coder You Can:

• Easily code, execute, and trouble-shoot simple SQL queries and complex database scripts with immediate feed-back and error assistance
• Automatically generate fully functional stored procedures and packages that encapsulate operations on database tables
• Execute stored procedures and access output easily
• Scan and update table data in spreadsheet format
• View all referential relationships among objects
• Drag and drop table and column names from the Table Lookup Facility to build queries
• Combine objects into scripts with an advanced scripting facility that automates dependency analysis

 
In SQL-Stations Intelligent Workspace, browsers are your window to database objects or Help topics. The menu bar shows currently available functions and the Editor has everything you dream of. 

Browse through Multiple RDBMS Catalogs
Having access to multiple database catalogs is a must especially in today's distributed development environments. SQL-Station's catalog browser maintains multiple concurrent connections to client/server RDBMSs on different platforms Oracle (up to Oracle8i), Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server, and ODBC-compliant databases. You can access any object you need quickly and easily, and work more efficiently. You can even search according to an object's contents. Once you find what you need, you can view, edit, execute, or even debug your object at the click of a button.
 
Speed through the Editing Process
Now, developers can use an editor built right on top of their database. SQL-Station's editor was designed to speed up the editing process with advanced features, such as search and replace, drag and drop, bracket matching, syntax highlighting, API assistance, comment templates, and spell checking. Syntax expansion, a new productivity aid, recognizes commands as you begin them and types ahead to save you keystrokes. The editor supports various editing modes (Windows Brief, VI, or EMACS.)
 
Build in Maintenance Shortcuts
You can keep application-quality standards high by incorporating your organization's best programming practices into templates. SQL-Station also gives you a push-button way to format new or existing PL/SQL code according to best practices. Both shortcuts raise the value of your deliverable while reducing your maintenance burden.
 
Sophisticated maintenance activities are simple with SQL-Station. For example, you can drag and drop objects into a compare facility; generate complex scripts, automatically detecting dependencies and ordering scripts accordingly; or even reverse-engineer your database into a script and then alter it. Coder's Object Report Wizards provide valuable information that helps you maintain your database objects.
 
Cut Development Time, Improve Program Quality with Re-usable Code
PL/Vision QuickStart, a powerful code library developed by industry expert Steven Feuerstein, contains over 300 PL/SQL procedures and functions that are fully integrated into SQL-Station. A simple PL/Vision procedure call replaces repetitive coding of common tasks, such as dynamic SQL, cursors, exception handling, file handling, PL/SQL table handling, commits, rollback, and savepoints.
 
Why reinvent the wheel? Save your programming genius for a genuinely unique challenge. And increase the reliability of your applications by using components already tested by hundreds of developers in thousands of applications. PL/Vision integrates seamlessly into the development environment and is easily mastered on all levels of PL/SQL experience.
 
Execute Your Code
SQL-Station's advanced query and execution facilities are so comprehensive and powerful they can be used independently for quick, periodic database maintenance as well as procedure testing. With SQL-Station's execution environment you can forget about the outdated interface of SQL*Plus get the same power in a modern, user-friendly interface. SQL-Station lets you rapidly input arguments and execute your code even SQL-server system procedures. Trouble-shooting complex database scripts becomes a breeze; a mini-debugger for script execution lets users execute statements one at a time, go to first/next/previous statement, or execute from script start to cursor position.
 
Step through Code to Locate and Fix Bugs
The SQL-Station Debugger is powerful, easy to use, and flexible for server-side programs. Debugger lets you use familiar client-side debugging techniques set breakpoints, complex conditional breakpoints, call stacks, and watch variables on your server-side code. The time you'd normally spend on server-side debugging and testing, and the frustration you'd experience in the process, are drastically reduced because Debugger is so powerful.
 
You can debug, execute, and test any block of PL/SQL code triggers, procedures, packages, functions, etc. Simply select an object and right click on it to choose the debugging option. Then set and qualify breakpoints or just step through the code statement by statement — as Debugger progressively reveals variable values.
 
Once you find a questionable expression, you can assign new variable values, then execute it in Debugger to evaluate it. Debugger is safe because it creates new versions without altering your production objects. It's also thorough. Debugger handles multiple input and output variable types, supporting anchored data types, and displays complete server output messages. If you do find a bug, simply drop into Coder's edit window to fix and execute the source code.

 
SQL-Station Debugger visually displays breakpoints, lets you step through code, watch or change variable values, and navigate to any dependent object.

Perform "Just in Time" Debugging
Debugging in web and client/server environments is full of frustrations. Normally you need two separate debugging processes, one for the client-side and another for the database server-side code. Then, you don't know exactly what values were passed from client to server, so you guess the values and manually enter them, an error-prone process, at best.
 
For seamless two- and three-tier debugging, SQL-Station's unique Just-in-Time feature launches Debugger when server-side objects are invoked from client applications, including PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, VC++, web servers, or any other application that uses standard OCI calls.
 
With monitoring enabled in SQL-Station, you can start the application for which you want to enable Debugger. Whenever the application invokes one of the PL/SQL objects selected for monitoring, SQL-Station Debugger will start a debugging session with all the input values already set and a pre-set break point on the first executable line.
 
Optimize Your Execution Plans
Even if it's bug free, there's still no guarantee that your application will perform at optimum speed and efficiency. Research shows that untuned SQL statements cause 60 to 80 percent of application performance problems. With Plan Analyzer, you can slash response times and drastically improve Oracle's SQL performance by supporting optimization activities. Plan Analyzer functions like an expert that answers all your questions about SQL tuning.
 
With Plan Analyzer, You Can:

• Identify common errors in coding SQL and specifying JOINs, and fix them with push-button ease
• Capture the SQL code that consumes the most resources
• Analyze optimization plans according to your execution environment
• Define virtual indexes on a What-IF basis and view their impact on Oracle's optimization plans
• Find frequently used queries that manipulate data based on attributes without a corresponding index
• Support sophisticated Oracle tuning techniques, such as array binding and optimization hints

Choose Your Approach SQL-Station Supports It
There are many ways of addressing the problems associated with SQL performance, depending on the application lifecycle and staff experience levels. Whatever approach you choose, SQL-Station supports it. The best approach is to start tuning in the earliest stages, while the application is still in development. You can highlight a statement and push the Check & Fix button. Plan Analyzer will scan the statement for the most common logic and coding errors, report any problems, and correct them automatically. Even an inexperienced person can make significant contributions this way. 

 
Plan Analyzer’s Check SQL visualizes, JOINs, identifies common coding errors, flags logic errors, and suggests ways to improve performance by re-writing. Just click the Fix SQL button! 

At the next level, someone who understands Oracle's Explain Plans might want to see all the details of the proposed fix. SQL-Station Plan Analyzer presents plans graphically, with explanations that reach far beyond Oracle's performance statistics and tuning options. Plan Analyzer presents all the information about the analyzed statement at a glance:

• SQL statement (formatted and color-coded)
• Graphical EXPLAIN plan
• Plain English description of the current step
• Complete statistics for the objects accessed in the current step (table, index, cluster)
• Plan Analyzer steps you through the plan, allowing you to view the relationships between steps (children/sibling or parent step) and the description of the step
• It even color-codes alarm and warning conditions according to the thresholds you define

Many times, you don't have the luxury of tuning during development. You are working in a production environment when performance problems crop up. You can use Plan Analyzer and Detector to capture SQL, and after you capture it, you can go into Plan Analyzer's tuning framework to analyze and solve problems with indexing schemes, access paths, and other elements.
 
Capture Runaway SQL
Plan Analyzer's flexible, real-time or batch SQL-capture facility traps server-side SQL code and associated optimization plans from database sources and third-party development tools (such as Visual Basic and PowerBuilder). With the capture facility, you can identify SQL that causes slow transactions based on various filters, such as CPU usage, I/O, elapsed time, and more.
 
On the client-side, SQL-Station Detector can quickly identify which query or procedure is hanging up performance and can profile SQL activity for a packaged application, even without the source code. Detector allows you to track, view, and save all the database calls performed from a specific client. If the problem seems to be related to a stored procedure or package invoked by the client application, you can easily track it down using Debugger. Or you can hand inefficient SQL code over to Plan Analyzer for tuning. Detector uses non-intrusive technology, easily installed on the client, as a capture agent. There is no burden on the database server, minimal demands on the client, and absolutely no source code changes required.
 
Use the Repository for Change Detection and Management
Users save valuable information in the Plan Analyzer Repository including current work, previously tuned plans, SQL statements, and performance statistics. If performance suddenly drops, a simple query reveals recent changes, helping you locate the offending SQL quickly.
 
Over time, Oracle-generated optimization plans, growing table size, and changing indexes will alter your database. Plan Analyzer allows you to run reports to determine how your database has changed. You can find out if, for example, your SQL calls an extinct or rarely used index. Or, you can search for and compare a recently saved plan to a production plan.
 
Build Better Indexes for ERP Applications
Indexing makes or breaks the performance of many ERP applications, such as PeopleSoft, SAP, or Baan. Few sites, however, can afford to discover the right indexing strategy by trial and error. Plan Analyzer's What-IF feature lets users explore various indexing schemes and their impact on SQL performance without the usual expenditure of time. With What-IF, you can create or drop virtual indexes on a table without actually changing your database. You don't have to guess if adding an index will help performance you will see the actual Explain plan from the Oracle optimizer.
 
Empower Team Development
Increasingly, as more applications rely on complex business logic implemented in database server-side code, members of a development team have to work concurrently (sometimes from remote locations) on large applications and complex database schemas.
 

 
SQL-Station seamlessly integrates with most commercially available version control and change management tools, such as PLATINUM CCC/Harvest, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, Intersolv PVCS, and many others. Often, however, managing development for database objects and code has specific requirements that are not met in general-purpose version control tools. SQL-Station Code Manager addresses these requirements with:

• Robust database-aware version control, with check in, check out, and the ability to compare revisions and revert to previous versions
• Full integration within the development environment provides drag-and-drop deployment, syntax checking, debugging and even tuning straight from the version control library
• Intelligent deployment of database server-side code from development through test to production saves painstaking development of deployment scripts
• Ability to reverse-engineer and break down complex database scripts into components really puts DBAs in control, eases maintenance and boosts DBA productivity
• Management for your design documents or ER diagrams in the same environment with your code objects

Gain Synergy with Other PLATINUM Products
If you are both a DBA and developer, you may want SQL-Station Advantage instead of SQL-Station. PLATINUM SQL-Station Advantage combines the functionality of SQL-Station with PLATINUM DBA Advantage, which enables you to administer, migrate, monitor, report, and edit data within your databases. The integration between these toolsets enhances efficiency and productivity by letting DBAs and developers perform all their tasks while seamlessly crossing component boundaries.
 
DBA/developers and data administrators can also realize tremendous productivity and quality benefits by using SQL-Station Advantage and PLATINUM ERwin, the pre-eminent data modeling tool, together for database application design and maintenance. SQL-Station extends ERwin's capabilities from the data model to managing objects in the live database and developing database server-side code.
 
Powered by POEMS
SQL-Station takes complete advantage of the PLATINUM Open Enterprise Management Services (POEMS). These common services provide a standard GUI-based management console ProVision's PLATINUM Director as well as other common components such as installation, communications, data sharing, and event management. The functional integration provided by these services allows users to automate critical management processes and collaborate on problem resolution using the management console. Each ProVision tool can be used independently, or as part of a completely integrated suite that addresses your critical management needs. The Powered by POEMS logo is your assurance that SQL-Station includes POEMS fully implemented in the product, and is ready "out of the box" to integrate with other POEMS-enabled tools.