Quest Updates Toad for Oracle To Promote Unit Testing, DevOps

Quest Software’s latest update to its Toad for Oracle database management tools will make it easier for database developers to incorporate unit testing into a database development processes and better support DevOps workflows.

by Vance McCarthy

Tags: code changes, database, DBA, DevOps, Toad for Oracle, unit testing,

Quest Software is set to release an update to its Toad for Oracle database management tools to makes it easier for database developers to incorporate unit testing into their database development processes. The idea is to ensure that such testing can be bought seamlessly into DevOps workflows.

Toad for Oracle 13.2 will sport a new utPLSQL unit test creation module. By providing higher levels of understanding of PL/SQL code coverage for better unit test creation.

This, and other updated features in Toad for Oracle 13.2 focus on addressing critical developer and DevOps--related challenges today, noted Venkat Rajaji, vice president of product management for Quest Software Information Management Business.

"Incorporating database code changes remains a manual, risky process that works against DevOps values and workflows,” Rajaji said. Trying to address these issues with native tools and manual processes often proves to be expensive, time-consuming, can even leave companies at the risk of downtime, data breaches and slow performance, he added.

Enter the Toad for Oracle 13.2 update, and how it tackles a long-standing DevOps challenge.

“A major reason organizations struggle to bring database operations into their DevOps processes is the challenge associated with automating unit tests for their PL/SQL procedural code, which makes it part of the DevOps pipeline. With the new utPLSQL unit test creation capability now available in Toad for Oracle 13.2, tests can be developed easily and incorporated into database DevOps workflows with minimal risk,” Rajaji said.

Quest Unit Test Wizard

In Toad for Oracle 13.2, PL/SQL code can be tested against all application use cases before implementation to reduce costly defects, and best-practice coding standards can be consistently applied to minimize unplanned development cycles.

This new ability to more easily create new unit tests for PL/SQL code utilizing the utPLSQL framework (along with update other updates), Toad for Oracle helps database developers to manage their growing database environment better.

Further, developer teams can better understand code constructs, reduce the risk of time-consuming code changes and errors and simplify ongoing code maintenance. The result is organizations can more reliably meet required service-level agreements, Rajaji added.

Toad for Oracle also enables database developers to build high-quality applications that can perform and scale in production as well as automate tasks and processes. This lets organizations cut risks associated with database changes and maintain productivity.

DevOp-Ready Development Features in Toad for Oracle Update

The new Toad for Oracle 13.2 also supports PL/SQL Unit Testing. It simplifies and automates the process of creating functional tests for PL/SQL code. A new Unit Test Manager allows developers to easily visualize, organize and run all PL/SQL unit tests. Further, test definitions are stored in a repository which can be leveraged by others for regression testing to support DevOps processes.

Other DevOps-friendly improvements in Toad for Oracle 13.2 include

Code Review: It defines coding standards from a selection of over 200 rules to ensure development teams can correct code as they type and consistently improve overall quality. This feature makes it easier to maintain code in the future and reduces the likelihood of defects.

Optimization: A new simple interface looks to solve problems of SQL tuning for developers -- and reduce burdens on DBAs. SQL Optimizer sports a patented re-writing algorithm quickly finds alternative versions of the original SQL statement that will run faster in the database.

Coding: Coding integrates the users’ preferred source control system and provides collaborative access to schema objects. This allows Team Coding to reconcile changes with the corresponding files in source control, thus simplifying and streamlining the developer experience.

Auto-Gen Reports: Users can automatically generate unit test reports allowing developers to view test results and examine test performance

User Test Integration: Users can integrate user tests with DevOps tools like Jenkins, Bamboos and other CI/CD tools