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Sybase Inc.'s SQL Server Professional for Windows NT, Version 11.1 is reviewed. Sybase went above and beyond the SQL Server 11 engine and included high-quality components for building data-enabled Web applications, producing reports, modeling data, and managing the system. SQL Server Professional for Windows NT embraces most standard data types, including various numeric, character, and binary large object types. The product boasts impressive architectural specifications, including databases as large as 32 terabytes, unlimited-length stored procedures, and as many triggers as disk space will allow. Unfortunately, the underlying SQL database engine has not changed with this release and does not yet support objects or rich data types.
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IF YOU'RE seeking a SQL database solution that runs in a Windows NT environment, you owe it to your data to look at SQL Server Professional for Windows NT,Version 11.1. Sybase went above and beyond the SQL Server 11 engine and included high-quality components for building dataenabled Web applications, producing reports, modeling data, and managing the system.
SQL Server Professional for Windows NT embraces most standard data types, including various numeric, character, and binary large object types. The product boasts impressive architectural specifications, including databases as large as 32 terabytes, unlimited-length stored procedures, and as many triggers as disk space will allow.
Unfortunately, the underlying SQL database engine has not changed with this release and does not yet support objects or rich data types. Sybase plans to include these features in an upcoming release, catching up to other database vendors such as Informix and IBM that already have these capabilities in their products.
SQL Server Professional for Windows NT promises to scale especially well. It works easily with remote users and supports applications in workgroup settings. The product operates in a multiprocessor, multithreaded environment and has cluster-index support that gives rapid response times, especially for very large databases. As you might expect, databases you create with this Windows NT version can also extend or mix with Sybase's Unix offerings.
Data-enabled Web applications
Sybase's flexible, well-integrated, database-managed Web-content creation tool, NetImpact Dynamo, can access an ODBC-compliant database, and developers can use the JavaScript-like language to build database-enabled Web pages. You can store your entire Web site within a SQL Server database.
NetImpact Dynamo has a generic set of templates to aid in the easy creation of basic Web applications, but developers will find the creation environment rather lean. The minimal editing and debugging support matches its disappointingly sparse Web-authoring features.
If you need strong graphical development capabilities, you might want to look at Microsoft's Visual InterDev, Symantec's Visual Cafe Pro, or Sybase's upcoming NetImpact Studio, which will also include NetImpact Dynamo.
Database modeling
Sybase includes a subset of its S-Designor AppModeler in the SQL Modeler component of SQL Server Professional for Windows NT. SQL Modeler's flexibility shows up in its physical data-modeling provisions, reverse engineering support for a number of database products, and its capability to easily generate models from scratch.
SQL Modeler compares well to Oracle's Database Designer, though it's not as extensive as Oracle's Designer 2000 or even Sybase's own full S-Designor AppModeler suite. Although the physical data modeling and reverse engineering features work well, SQL Modeler does not perform higher-end tricks such as conceptual modeling or application generation.
Analysis and reporting
Showing the way for other database vendors, Sybase integrates its stand-alone analysis and reporting tool, InfoMaker, into SQL Server Professional for Windows NT. Informix, Oracle, and IBM either do not offer reporting tools or only support reporting features through separate product offerings.
This version of InfoMaker is the same as its stand-alone counterpart. In addition, the current availability of integrated queries, forms, and reports, combined with its ease of use, make this a tool to appreciate. I easily selected an ODBC data source within InfoMaker and quickly generated forms, queries, and reports.
InfoMaker's data-pipe feature was another fine timesaver. It made it particularly simple for me to move data among my different databases.
Perfonnance and administration
Sybase has some thoughtful addons that make database administration and performance tuning just a bit easier. SQL Server Professional for Windows NT comes with tools that make it easy to configure backup services, set up replication, and perform SQL monitoring.
Sybase has included its SQL Central graphical administration tool, also found in Sybase's SQL Anywhere, with SQL Server Professional for Windows NT.
With enhancements for devices, caches, and drag-and-drop schema support, SQL Central is as easy to use and as well integrated with its underlying database as Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
Of particular interest is Sybase's logical memory manager, a tool that lets you configure and tune cache settings to optimize performance. This is especially helpful if your system must accommodate a combination of online transaction processing and decision support, because the optimal performance characteristics of each are different.
Although I didn't run high-end performance benchmarks during my evaluation, from a qualitative perspective SQL Server Professional for Windows NT was a speedy performer in both a single-server and multiple-server setting. Given the tuning provisions and a number of other features for boosting performance, I believe I could achieve subsecond response time for several thousand users.
Sybase has added integrated replication for SQL Anywhere users through the SQL Remote component. If you want to replicate data in a large-scale enterprise setting, however, you'll need to purchase Sybase's Replication Server separately.
SQL Server for Windows NT supports major standards in several key areas. Transact SQL, embedded SQL, and ODBC support give you database interoperability and support for major network protocols and Web standards, and tight integration with Windows NT makes administration much easier.
Overall, with its flexibility, scalability, fast performance, and solid SQL architecture, Sybase's SQL Server Professional for Windows NT merits a serious second look.
Maggie Biggs (maggie biggs@info world.com) is a technology analyst at the Info World Test Center.
Copyright InfoWorld Publications, Inc. Mar 31, 1997