Databases are used everywhere, especially in the business realm. Everything from lifestyle blogs to serious manufacturing enterprises sooner or later will need a reliable database.
Previously, we discussed the Database Development Process Steps, as well as went deeper into Database Design Methodologies. Today we’re turning this topic into a trilogy by adding an article on the Best Database Development Software. Keep on reading to make sure you are 100% savvy on this one!
P.S.: This article will definitely be a leader on the number of times the word “database” is used. Sorry not sorry…
What Is the Best Database Development Software?
Database development is a set of processes that facilitate the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of database management systems (DBMS). Properly developed databases can help you improve data consistency for efficient business use.
There is a wide variety of software available to help you easily create database schemes. Such applications can be used to create a physical model or ERD of your database so that you could quickly create tables and relationships.
Specifically, database development software is used to create, edit, and maintain database files and records, which significantly facilitates the process of creating files and records, entering data, editing, updating, and reporting. The software also helps with data storage, backup and reporting, multiple access management, as well as security. Strong database security is especially important today as cases of data theft have occurred with ever increasing frequency.
Database software simplifies data management by helping users store data in a structured form and effectively access and process it. Typically, such software has a graphical interface to help create and manage data.
Here are some characteristics of good database software:
- Аilters. A good database filter allows you to not only select the information you want, but also identify the information you don’t need.
- Search. Your database software should have a search tool so that you could quickly find a single record or group of records.
- Features for creating reports. Such software should allow you to create and print your own reports, extract information from one or more tables.
- Possibility to combine data. You should be able to combine several types of data into a report or search result.
- Updates. The database should have an update form so that you could easily update large masses of data.
- Export. It should be possible to export data to other formats. The possibility to export data to a spreadsheet or other programs is extremely useful.
- Backups. Every time you save information on the web, you want to be able to create backups of this data. Such copies protect you from data loss.
- Security. Your database software should have security measures built in, or allow you to add security measures on your own.
- Support. Database software tools can be very confusing, so it’s a good idea to find one that has effective support, as well as community groups, tutorials, etc.
- Documentation. When getting your database development started, you may need good user documentation to answer your questions and walk you through the process.
Benefits of Using Database Software
Using database software without any doubt takes your development process onto a new level in terms of efficiency and user experience. Here are some of the advantages of a centralized approach to data management using a database software:
Reduced data redundancy
In the absence of a centralized database, each application will separately store its data. It’s a common occasion when several applications use the same data. It happens, for instance, when both a list of personnel in a department, and a list of personnel subject to promotion, have names, addresses, and passport details. In a centralized database, such data can be combined with full or partial elimination of redundancy.
Possibility to eliminate inconsistency
Inconsistencies are often a consequence of data redundancy. If the same data about one person is contained in two different records and this “split” is not specified, then sooner or later the two records may no longer come along consistently. For example, changes will be made only to one of the records. In this case, the database will become inconsistent. Such conflicts can be avoided by eliminating or controlling redundancy. In the latter case, multiple updates can be used, so that when changes are made to one of the records, the associated records will also be automatically changed.
Data sharing
With a centralized database employees of different departments can share data usage.
Standards obedience
It is much easier to implement uniform data processing standards in a centralized system.
Possibility to impose restrictions to ensure data security
With centralized storage and processing of data, it is easier to develop and implement standards for the distribution of access to them.
Data integration
The task data integration is to ensure the correctness and accuracy of data in the database. The emergence of contradictions is an example of data integrity problems. As well, with a centralized database, it’s easier to organize the procedures for backing up and restoring the database.
What Is the Best Software for Creating and Managing Databases?
Now we are ready to list top performing software for your database! Stay tuned to learn more.
Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer
Solarwinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is an application performance monitoring solution for cloud and hybrid environments. System administrators, database administrators (DBAs), developers, and database managers use DPA for prevention and resolution of database performance problems, as well as for analysis and tuning.
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA) is perfect for database administrators who are looking for an easy-to-use all-in-one solution. DPA allows you to monitor lots of databases, such as SQL, Oracle, DB2 and many more – using a single tool. It has a streamlined, intuitive interface which allows you to easily complete tasks, usually in a few clicks. In addition, because DPA comes within a greater SolarWinds ecosystem, all features and integrations with other tools can be combined to help reduce the general database management workload.
Key DPA features include tools to identify performance bottlenecks in AWS and Azure, as well as analysis of response time to monitor, analyze, and tune the performance of your SQL Server instance. Database Performance Analyzer provides DBAs and developers with useful SQL performance tuning advice so that they could focus on a specific SQL query. Users can use SQL response time as a key metric to compare performance across platforms. The system uses multivariable analysis to track and adjust AWS, the performance of EC2 (R) and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) instances.
Here are some of the other important features:
- Displays delays in response time for the current period, as well as for weeks and months.
- Proactively notifies administrators of problems via email or SNMP trap.
- Automatically prepares graphical reports on a schedule and distribution by email.
- Supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers.
- Runs on any Windows, Linux or UNIX server with support of Java JRE 1.5 or higher.
- Has less than 1% load on monitored servers thanks to agentless architecture.
- Provides a timeout visualization.
DbVisualizer
DbVisualizer is a multi-platform tool designed to administer relational databases from leading vendors using the JDBC data access mechanism. It offers a simple yet powerful interface with support for various database models. It also supports concurrent connections that allow you to explore and manipulate objects, perform SQL searches, or display information. It is a versatile database tool for developers, DBAs, and analysts.
Among the DBMS supported by this product there are: SAP DB, Cache, MySQL, DBMS from IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Pervasive, Sybase, and some less popular ones. DbVisualizer is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris platforms.
DbVisualizer allows you to represent the database structure in the form of an ER diagram, edit metadata and data, execute SQL scripts and perform other actions typical of such tools.
DBVisualizer’s functions include the following:
- Full database and operating system support.
- Database Object Management.
- Data management table.
- Exporting Database Objects and Tabular Data
- Exporting and importing custom settings that make it easy to transfer all settings to another computer or user account.
- Support of user-defined export templates.
- Automatic detection of the data type in the data import table.
- Creation and editing a new trigger: resource for Oracle, DB2 for LUW, Mimer, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, SQL Server, MySQL, JavaDB/Derby, and Informix.
- Building, editing, and compiling Corpo processes, functions, modules, and packages in Oracle, DB2 for LUW, Mimer, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, SQL Server, MySQL, JavaDB / Derby, and Informix.
- The Schema/Database Export feature that allows you to export DDL for schema objects, including table data in SQL or XML format. This can be used to restore or migrate objects to a different database server.
- SQL format with new options.
- Support for parameter markers.
- Additional support for viewing and managing the scheduler in Oracle.
Manageengine Applications Manager
ManageEngine Applications Manager is an application performance management solution that proactively monitors business applications and helps companies ensure that their revenue-generating applications meet end-user expectations.
It ensures a high-level user experience with the help of transaction monitoring, code level diagnostics and Apdex scores. Users can view all important monitoring parameters from a single graphical console. They can set up alarms to receive proactive alerts and view detailed reports. Application Manager effectively administers troubleshooting time by quickly identifying the root cause of any problem and immediately alerting the administrator of an impending problem. The Application Manager’s claim to be an effective all-in-one monitoring solution is proven by its loyal customer base (over 3,000 customers). ManageEngine Applications Manager comes in two versions: Professional and Enterprise. The Professional edition is designed for small and medium businesses and can monitor up to 250 applications, databases, servers, etc. Enterprise edition is targeted at large enterprises and features scalability, failover support, the ability to track thousands of applications, servers, databases, etc.
ManageEngine Applications Manager’s key features come down to the following:
- A single console for monitoring heterogeneous applications
- Measuring database attributes to monitor application performance.
- Code-level diagnostics for Java, .NET, and Ruby on Rails.
- Application monitoring for web servers/services.
- Monitoring application server performance.
- Cloud, container and infrastructure monitoring.
- Monitoring middleware and messaging components.
- Monitoring synthetic applications with a real browser.
Altibase
Altibase is an enterprise open source DBMS. This provides high performance and scalability. Altibase is SQL compliant, thus it is compatible with such relational databases as Oracle, MS and IBM. Altibase is multi-platform and can run on virtually all enterprise operating systems and platforms, specifically, it’s compatible with Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, and Windows. Altibase’s hybrid architecture enables high-performance memory and disk tables for low-cost storage. As a result, data can be stored and processed in the main memory, as well as on the physical disk, or their combination.
Some of the advantages of Altibase include:
- High quality standards and stability.
- Strong functionality and ability to interoperate with other systems.
- Scalability efficiency with demanding or very large workloads.
- Robust and easily accessible recovery features.
- High quality documentation and 24/7 technical support.
Oracle RDBMS
Oracle RDBMS is a commercial multi-model database management system manufactured and sold by Oracle Corporation. It is commonly used to work with Data Warehouse (DW), Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), and Mixing (DW & OLTP). Oracle is a very powerful database that allows you to write any complex systems, for instance in banking, ERP, insurance, and finance.
Oracle Database reliably manages large amounts of data in a multi-user environment so that many users can access the same data simultaneously preserving high productivity. At the same time, it prevents unauthorized access and provides effective recovery solutions. For many years it has been the most popular DBMS.
One of the Oracleэы distinguishing features is the ability to store and process various types of data. This functionality is integrated into the database engine and supported by the interMedia module that comes within the Oracle Database. It allows you to work with text, including various types of search (i.e. contextual); work with graphic images of more than 20 formats; work with audio and video information.
The Oracle DBMS not only provides an extended set of built-in data types, but also allows, through the use of the Object Option, to construct new data types with a specification of access methods to them. This means, in fact, that developers get a hand-on tool that allows them to build structured data types that directly represent objects in the domain.
Some of the distinguishing features of Oracle RDBMS include:
- Oracle supports distributed databases.
- Oracle has various types of backups such as cloud backup, hot backup, export, data import. It offers the most popular backup utility called Recovery Manager (RMAN).
- Oracle supports several extensions and programs on its database server, such as Active Data Guard, Audit Vault, Partitioning, Data Mining, etc.
- Oracle has Tablespace, role management, snapshots, and automatic storage management.
- Written in assembler, C and C ++.
IBM Db2
DB2 is a set of relational database management systems manufactured by the IBM Corporation. It is one of the mature DBMS, and a constant leader in performance in terms of technical implementation, scalability, etc.
The most important features of IBM DB2 are:
- Multiplatform capacity. Even the lowest edition “IBM DB2 Express – C” supports several most popular operating systems — Windows (including x64), Linux (POWER and x86 servers), Mac OS X, and Solaris x64.
- Advanced Copy Services (ACS). DB2 ACS allows you to use fast storage device copy technology to perform data copying in backup and restore operations. The ability to copy data by means of a storage device significantly speeds up backup and restoring operations. Backing up using DB2 ACS is called a snapshot backup.
- Online reorganization of tables (REORG, in-place reorganization) allows the user to reorganize a table without closing full access to it.
- High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) support. DB2 HADR functionality provides high availability and failover support for DB2 databases.
- Support for 64-bit instances.
- Support for Materialized Query Tables, Query Parallelism, Multidimensional Clustering Tables (MDC)
- Support for data compression when backing up
- SQL replication support.
- Database Partitioning support. Used for scalable clusters: used to be called DB2 EEE. This functionality allows you to distribute a single database image to multiple physical servers.
- DB2 Text Search. The DB2 Text Search feature allows you to search text columns in DB2 tables. Text search support allows you to use the DB2 built-in CONTAINS, SCORE, and xmlcolumn-contains functions to search text indexes based on the search arguments you specify.
- IBM Data Studio is a tooling platform that covers the entire application lifecycle (design, development, deployment, support and management) for all IBM relational databases. This means that you have not only a portable SQL API, but also a set of tools that enable you to implement business logic throughout the enterprise.
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Microsoft Corporation. SQL Server is the backbone of the Microsoft data platform that delivers reliable, sustainable performance, and helps you extract value faster from any data both on premises or in the cloud.
Special features of MS SQL are:
The main query language used is Transact-SQL, co-authored by Microsoft and Sybase.
Transact-SQL is an implementation of the ANSI/ISO Structured Query Language (SQL) standard with extensions.
It is used to work with databases ranging in size from personal to large enterprise-scale databases.
- Microsoft SQL Server uses a version of SQL called Transact-SQL (T-SQL for short) as its query language, which is an implementation of SQL-92 (the ISO standard for SQL) with multiple extensions. T-SQL allows additional syntax for stored procedures and provides transactional support (interaction between the database and the controlling application).
- Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase ASE use an application layer protocol called Tabular Data Stream (TDS) to interact with the network. The TDS protocol has also been implemented in the FreeTDS project to enable various applications to interact with Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase databases.
- Microsoft SQL Server also supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), an interface for interacting applications with a database management system.
- SQL Server supports database mirroring and clustering. A SQL Server Cluster is a collection of identically configured servers; this arrangement helps to distribute the workload across multiple servers. All servers have a single virtual name, and data is mapped to the IP addresses of the cluster machines during a runtime. Also, in the event of a failure on one of the cluster servers, automatic load transfer to another server is available.
SAP Sybase ASE
SAP Sybase ASE is a high-performance relational database management system for critical data-intensive environments. The system provides operational efficiency and throughput while supporting a wide range of platforms. As an enterprise DBMS, Sybase ASE has traditionally been used in the most demanding systems requiring high level of responsibility, preserving the ease of maintenance and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) among “large” DBMSs.
Key ASE features include proprietary encryption, database partitioning technology, patent-pending query processing technology for intelligent transactions, and means of permanent availability in clustered environments. The inclusion of in-memory database organization in ASE 15.5 enables data virtualization and scalability that is critical for organizations with high volumes of data and large numbers of concurrent users, whether deployed in a public cloud or the organization’s own data center.
The SAP Sybase ASE features and benefits include the following:
- Ensures supreme performance, namely, allows to achieve the speed of millions of transactions per minute in terabytes-worth databases while maintaining high data and transaction growth rates.
- Helps organizations avoid costly disruptions such as system failures or data breaches.
- Protects information systems from common threats, ensuring data security, system stability and recovery.
- Allows IT service to offer fast response times and reduce risk, as well as provide a higher level of service even while cutting budgets.
- Effectively operates with hardware, increasing utilization and delivering high performance while lowering overall costs.
- Simplifies database administration tasks.
Teradata
Teradata is a parallel relational database management system that runs on MP-RAS UNIX, Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Server and SUSE Linux operating systems. The variety of operating systems supported is one of the reasons why Teradata has an open architecture. In fact, Teradata is a large database server that interacts with multiple clients over TCP/IP or over an IBM mainframe link.
Here are the reasons why companies choose Teradata DBMS:
- Supports large amounts of data – more than 400 TB in one area.
- Supports modular scalability from small databases (10GB) to large (100+ TB).
- Provides a parallel-aware optimizer that eliminates complex customizations to get a query.
- Automatic data distribution eliminates complex indexing schemes and time-consuming reorganizations.
- The database is designed and built using a parallel architecture from the very beginning.
- Supports ad-hoc queries that use the ANSI SQL standard and include SQL database management information (log files), allowing queries from other database management systems to be submitted to Teradata.
- Single point of management for database administration (Teradata Manager).
Adabas
ADABAS DBMS is a scalable, full-featured database server produced by Software AG. ADABAS is presented on all major server platforms such as IBM Mainframe (OS / 390, MVS, VM), major Unix platforms, Windows NT, and naturally functions in local and global heterogeneous networks. ADABAS has powerful and easy-to-use database administration tools available.
The scalable architecture of Adabas allows you to work with any type of data (including semi-structured and unstructured ones, and to grow their volume indefinitely, as well as ensure continuous availability and fault tolerance).
Adabas has the following characteristics:
Works with files and records as the main organizational units.
Fields are the components of rows.
There is no built-in SQL engine. SQL access through the Adabas SQL gateway was introduced by the acquired CONNX in 2004. It provides ODBC, JDBC, and OLE DB access to Adabas and SQL access to Adabas using COBOL programs.
Search tools can use indexed fields and/or non-indexed fields.
Does not natively enforce referential integrity constraints.
Supports two methods of denormalization: repeating groups in a record (“periodic groups”) and fields with multiple values in a record (“multi-valued fields”).
Adabas is commonly used in applications that require processing large amounts of data, or in online analytical processing environments with a large number of transactions.
MySQL
MySQL is an open source relational database management system. Currently, this DBMS is one of the most popular in web applications – the overwhelming majority of CMS use MySQL, and almost all web frameworks support MySQL at the basic configuration level (without additional modules).
The system was originally designed for limited use. Today it is compatible with platforms such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, and Ubuntu. Large applications (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Yahoo!) use MySQL to store their data.
MySQL is second only to Oracle Database in terms of how popular it is. Here’s why:
- Simplicity. It is possible to change the source code, and you can do this yourself. You don’t have to pay anything before you decide to use the commercial version.
- Performance. The system supports many models of clustered servers. The optimal speed is offered, both for processing large analytics and for conducting e-commerce.
- Standardization. There is an industry standard, thus users quickly receive the ordered software.
- Safety. The system of access to accounts guarantees the safety of databases and first-class security. Password encryption and host-based verification are available.
Database Development Services by JoinSoft
JoinSoft provides Custom Software Development Services that offers tailored solutions to ensure stable operation of your business processes and boost growth.
Our Database Solutions are created taking into account your specific needs.
We respect your time and budget, and aim to deliver services at a fair price as fast as we can without compromising quality.
We don’t offer spreadsheet solutions. Instead, we develop cutting-edge databases to make your data collection, processing and distribution an easy task.
We offer a team of dedicated professionals to your service with 5+ years of experience each. Been there, sone that, they say, huh?
Keeping in touch with our clients providing them with constant feedback and ongoing support is what we can’t go without. We always make sure our clients are aware of the status of their project. Always open for comments, we are ready to keep on tailoring our products to skyrocket clients’ satisfaction.
Get full advantage of Big Data for your business with JoinSoft!
Final Thoughts About Best Database Development Software
Database management systems are capable of performing similar basic tasks, including collecting, modifying, and accessing data stored in databases. These systems differ from each other only in how these actions are performed. The features, support, and even functionality supported by each of these systems may differ from each other. The first and foremost thing that you need to consider is the ease of use provided by the DBMS and the degree of its scalability.
All types of Database Development Software from our TOP have taken over their place in the process of “natural selection” and definitely have their own share of the market. In addition, when deciding on the database software you should judge upon your specific project, since choosing the right software gives you the most return on investment.
