Red Gate Roadmap for 2012

Our release schedule at a glance

• SQL Toolbelt & SQL Developer Bundle
  1. New Products – free to customers with Support & Upgrades
     1. SQL Connect – work on your database changes from within Visual Studio. Released
     2. SQL Test – a unit test add-in for SQL Server Management Studio. Released
  2. SQL Deployment
     1. SQL Compare 10.1 – use custom migrations scripts from the command line. Due Q2 2012
     2. SQL Source Control:
        1. Version 3.1 – performance enhancements to the engine. Due Q2 2012
        2. Version 4 – under investigation
     3. SQL Packager 7 – use custom migrations scripts from SQL Packager. Due Q4 2012
  3. SQL Productivity
     1. SQL Prompt 6 – adds synonyms support and partial matching. Due Q3 2012
     2. SQL Data Generator 3 – data masking. Due Q4 2012
• SQL DBA Tools
  1. SQL Monitor
  2. SQL Backup Pro
• .NET Developer Tools
  1. .NET Profilers
  2. SmartAssembly

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SQL Toolbelt & SQL Developer Bundle in 2012

New products – SQL Connect & SQL Test

Two new products are due to be added to the SQL Developer Bundle and SQL Toolbelt in the first half of 2012. If you have Support & Upgrades for these bundles you will receive these products free as part of your package.

SQL Connect is a new add-in for Visual Studio that allows you to develop and source control your database changes. You can download a preview now.

SQL Test is an add-in for SQL Server Management Studio that finally allows you to write and run unit tests for SQL within the SSMS environment. Download a preview release of SQL Test.

SQL Deployment

SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare, & SQL Comparison SDK

SQL Compare 10.1 will let you use the command line to run custom migration scripts, enabling the use of SQL Compare in Continuous Integration processes (more on this below).

For further releases of SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare, the teams are looking at new ways of making Continuous Integration effortless. After that, we want to improve the integration of these products into SQL Server Management Studio.

Finally, we recently released a new version of the SQL Comparison SDK, with SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure support.

SQL Source Control

SQL Source Control will receive performance enhancements in Q2 2012. We've had feedback that there are certain specific scenarios where SQL Source Control could be faster, so we'll be pushing out a new release very soon.

Currently, we're also investigating enhanced support for Git and Mercurial. As we move into the latter part of 2012, the team will begin investigating areas such as tighter TFS integration, enhanced branching and merging support, and several other requests from our users.

SQL Packager

SQL Packager 7, planned for Q4 2012, will allow users to use the full SQL Source Control and SQL Compare custom scripts functionality to deploy databases in a reliable and repeatable manner.

SQL Productivity

SQL Prompt

SQL Prompt has already received several new features in 2012, including synonym suggestions and partial matching. We've generally released them through SQL Prompt Labs.

We're using Labs to release new features regularly and quickly, so you can tell us which ones you like best. As we gather feedback on the current set, we'll roll them into the product for future releases – all freely available on the Support and Upgrades package.

SQL Data Generator & SQL Dependency Tracker

For SQL Data Generator, we're in the early stages of investigating additional ways to use the tool for data masking, for example, automatically overwriting sensitive credit card information with auto-generated data.

For SQL Dependency Tracker, we're investigating tighter integration into SQL Server Management Studio.

SQL Toolbelt users can find information about SQL Backup and SQL Monitor in the SQL DBA Tools section below.

2011 SQL Toolbelt and SQL Developer Bundle releases

SQL Compare 9 came out in early 2011, with support for SQL Azure databases. SQL Compare 10 came out in late 2011, with extensive new deployment functionality. Users can manage custom migration scripts to safely deploy SQL Server databases in a reliable and repeatable manner.

SQL Source Control got three releases in 2011. Version 2 allowed users to source control static data. 2.1 provided support for Vault, Mercurial, Perforce, CVS, Git and other version control systems. Version 3, which came out with SQL Compare 10, allows users to store and manage migration scripts under source control.

SQL Data Compare 9 added support for SQL Azure. SQL Doc, SQL Dependency Tracker, and SQL Data Generator all got tigher integration into SQL Server Management Studio, and we added new Python data generators for SQL Data Generator, too.

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SQL DBA Tools in 2012

SQL Monitor

SQL Monitor 3.0 came out in Q1 2012. After many user requests (!) it now supports different access permissions for administrators, standard users, and read-only users. You can also create your own custom metric definitions by entering T-SQL queries into the tool, allowing you to collect, analyze, and alert on the data that is most important in your environment.

Next, we'll improve the library of custom metrics and create an area where users can share and discuss these. There will also be usability enhancements, particularly around the alert inbox, and further performance improvements to the tool.

Longer term, we are researching the possibilities for baselining and investigating virtual machine support, so you'll see further developments in those areas.

As always, if you have any thoughts on our plans or features you'd like to see, let us know at the SQL Monitor UserVoice forum.

2011 SQL Monitor releases

SQL Monitor 2.3 was released in 2011. It gave users the ability to view the top 10 most expensive queries list for each SQL Server instance and database, improved purge options for high and low volume data, and integration with third-party phone and SMS alerting tool PagerDuty.

SQL Backup Pro

SQL Backup Pro 7.0 came out in Q2 2012. New features in version 7 include integrated backup verification and scheduled restores. We've made the necessary, but tedious, task of verification a whole lot easier, so it becomes a natural part of the backup process.

Step-by-step guides take you through the process of setting up regular CHECKSUM and full restore + DBCC CHECKDB consistency checks, so you don’t have to worry about corrupt data in a disaster recovery scenario.

We've got plenty of exciting plans for SQL Backup Pro 7, so watch this space for further details during 2012.

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.NET Tools

.NET Profilers

ANTS Performance Profiler

ANTS Performance Profiler 7 was released in February 2012, bringing new Integrated Decompilation capabilities. This uses the .NET Reflector engine to dig into any .NET code, regardless of whether you have access to the source. We've also extended platform support even further to include IIS Express and Sharepoint 2010.

SQL call profiling, introduced in version 6, has proved so popular that we are now extending support to any SQL or Oracle servers (including SQL Express, and calls to any databases whether local or remote). With the latest build of our beta program, you can now see how your .NET code generates database calls and how they perform. Join our beta program, so that we can build the product you need.

ANTS Memory Profiler

For ANTS Memory Profiler, we're working on solving your memory problems faster. Thanks to those of you who opt in to our feature feedback program, we now know a lot more about where people get stuck solving .NET memory issues. Debugging is being smoothed out through a series of small releases. Check for updates to pick up the latest improvements.

SmartAssembly

SmartAssembly 6.6 was released in January 2012. We've enhanced obfuscation for the Developer and Professional licenses with a new option called 'Method Parent Obfuscation'. This moves methods around in your code by changing the class they are in, making it harder to understand how methods and classes relate to each other.

We've also added a new control flow obfuscation mode called 'Unverifiable', which enhances control flow obfuscation for desktop applications that have full trust. Finally, we added support for Silverlight 5 and fixed some bugs.

For future releases, we're thinking about improved WPF support, reducing the likelihood of failed assemblies, better support if a processed assembly does fail, and enhancements to SmartAssembly's Automated Error Reporting, including integration with more bug tracking systems.

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