Although the greatest asset of any DBA is his or her own mind, it doesn't hurt to have the right tools. As a DBA in today's world, there is an abundance of administration tools from which to choose. There are benefits and drawbacks to each, but the choice of a tool is generally about one's comfort level with the tool as well as its feature set. Some tools are free, some are open source, and some require paid licenses; however, each tool uses the same syntax for SQL when it connects to an Oracle database. The following are some commonly used DBA tools:
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The real-world DBA
While your choice of SQL tool is an important one, in the industry it is one that is sometimes dictated by the toolset standards of your employer. It's important that you don't completely dedicate yourself to one tool. If you become an expert at one and then transfer to a different employer whose standards don't allow for the use of your tool, you may find yourself with an initial learning curve.