Five Database Management Tips to Help Businesses Meet IT Needs

In many cases today, IT organizations are challenged with gleaning insight from the masses of data produced by customers and employees – and to do so in an efficient, cost-effective way that optimizes the skill sets of developers and data analysts is an even greater constraint.

However, Quest Software’s (News - Alert) Toad for Oracle database management platform is helping organizations reduce costs, improve productivity and respond to business needs, according to a new study the company conducted in collaboration with Forrester Research (News - Alert).

The firms’ Total Economic Impact (TEI) study found that organizations reaped significant quantifiable benefits in cost-savings and productivity, as well as several additional unquantifiable benefits, including development of common processes, increased morale and employee retention, and access to top training materials and talent.

In fact, most respondents said they were about 40 percent more productive during the 30 percent of their workday in which they benefitted from using Toad products, realizing the organization a total savings of $74,031,000 over five years. In addition, the study revealed that Quest’s Toad World user community to be valuable source for Toad for Oracle documentation and training.

IT management software provider Quest, which is owned by Dell (News - Alert), offered five “New Year’s resolutions” for businesses, which are as follows:

1. Reduce costs by maximizing the DBA labor force – By standardizing on Toad for Oracle, the organization has been able to hire from a larger pool of potential DBA resources, due to its capability to uplift the productivity and quality of work product. Even junior DBAs using Toad for Oracle are more capable, because Toad’s tools and processes allow them to exhibit productivity similar to that of a more experienced DBA.
2. Increase the efficiency and productivity of DBAs, developers and data analysts – Before standardizing on Toad, the company surveyed existing Toad users among its developers, DBAs and data analysts, asking them to estimate how much more productive they were using Toad for Oracle in place of their previous tools.
3. Develop common processes to simplify database management – The study organization found that having a standard tool like Toad for Oracle allowed it to establish common processes, procedures, and best practices, resulting in the significant productivity improvements, and also simplifying the process of moving DBAs and developers around, or backfilling for them on special projects.
4. Increase employee morale and reduce attrition rates by providing database professionals with industry-recognized tools such as Toad for Oracle – The organization has found that its database professionals fiercely favor the continuing use of Toad solutions to get their jobs done, and, according to the study, views the use of industry-recognized tools like Toad for Oracle as a positive factor in increasing morale and reducing attrition rates.
5. Leverage the Toad World user community and the Toad library for specific Toad for Oracle training needs. – Organizations can make sure that its code meets its own high standards using Toad’s Editor and Schema (News - Alert) Browser, available within Toad World, and also has found the Toad library to be a rich resource of articles, videos and other media for various aspects of database development.

In September 2012, Dell completed the acquisition of Quest Software, which offers software designed to simplify and solve the most common and challenging IT problems for organizations.

For Dell, the move to purchase Quest spells a step away from the personal computer market. Mobile devices like Apple’s (News - Alert) iPad have caused a significant deceleration in the PC market, TMCnet reported. Dell executives reportedly consider software and services to be key growth areas for their company as it moves forward.

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