The very first article that I ever published on the Internet was a brief review of DBArtisan.  It met with such a huge success that I decided to continue to publish articles and review products.  That was several thousand pages of content ago.   Now I find myself right back where I started, but looking at the next release of DBArtisan.  The phone call I got from Coleen Weeks, now the Marketing Manager, shortly after that first review went up was a shot out of the blue that really surprised me.  I was surprised that a vendor noticed my work enough to take the time to call and I continue to be surprised by all of the vendors and most especially the loyal readers I have gained over the last year and a half.

I wanted to take a short moment to thank everyone for the support and encouragement that started me down a path that has been extremely enjoyable.

The first review of DBArtisan was short and to the point.  DBArtisan has evolved significantly since I first picked it up almost 5 years ago.  The review of DBArtisan 4.02 left a lot of information out.  When I sat down to do this review I told myself that I would cover everything that this fantastic tool has to offer.  138 screen shots later, I had captured everything.  Unfortunately, dropping a 50 or 60 page (or more) product review on you would not have been nice.  So, I have cut that back to encompass the bare minimum required to show off the major functionality.

Version 5.03 has to be the most ambitious release I have witnessed from Embarcadero.   DBArtisan was already the management tool of choice for many working in Sybase or Oracle shops and it has made rapid inroads into the MS SQL Server market.  It is the only management tool of choice for those dealing with mixed environments.  DBArtisan is the only tool that allows you to manage MS SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle, and now DB2 databases from a single interface seamlessly.  Not only can you manage multiple platforms, but also multiple versions.  Many people are struggling with the fact that they have to install a 6.5 and a 7.0 version of Enterprise Manager and each is bound to a specific version.  DBArtisan allows you to manage both versions from the same interface.  I have seen the management tools offered by the DBMS manufacturers and other vendors.  The ease of use, cross platform support, functionality, and technical support pale compared to what Embarcadero has to offer with DBArtisan 5.03.

Not only can it accomplish a single interface for management, but it also contains several features that do not exist in any other tool on the market.  Many of these will be discussed in slightly greater detail below but include the following:

• Cross platform object migration of common types (Migrate an Oracle table to SQL Server or DB2 and vice versa)
• Job scheduling
• Improved Oracle support such as PL/SQL auto-formatting, offline syntax checking, code analysis, sequence editing, partitioning, and directory/library object types
• Object documentation
• Enhanced process monitoring
• Multi-threaded interface allowing multiple operations to be run in the background
• Significant improvements in the ISQL window (basically most of the RapidSQL functionality embedded into DBArtisan)
• Session recording
• A whole host of navigation improvements/enhancements
• ER/Studio models opened into DBArtisan
• Script Execution Facility
• An exposed object model
• ActiveX scripting support
• Datasource discovery
• A multi-threaded, cross DBMS scripting engine exposed as a command line utility

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