Management Tools for Oracle

Question

Hi Guys,
Is there a consensus view on a decent GUI interface for managing Oracle instances. In particular something equivalent to SQL Server Management Studio - something that allows you to do DBA tasks and write ad hoc queries against the database?
The reason I ask is that I'm just having a play with Enterprise Manager (the web based version) and I've got to be honest - it's pretty hard going. Even something as simple as adding a table is very tedious when compared to SQL Server Management Studio.
I'm just downloading SQL Server Developer to see how that looks but was wondering if there was a de facto standard that lots of people like and use.
Many thanks in advance
Simon
PS - Typing the SQL in by hand is not an option for me
:-)

Answer 1

Hi Simon,
Many thanks for your thoughts. I've heard people say similar things about SQL Server - e.g. if you don't know how to make indexes, filegroups, schemas etc using TSQL, you aren't a proficient DBA. Thing is, I still manage to make a decent wage consulting on SQL Server and I'm sure the same arguments were applied to the Windows command prompt in the past.No Simon, you took me wrong. A proficient DBA is NOT the one who remembers each command by heart and can immediately type it. Heck what is the need of remembering syntaxes, commands when there is whole bunch of information of them over the entire web, in the documentation? But merely knowing that there is a command and does create an index doesn't make /prove anyone as a super-duper dba. Knowing at which stage to apply which command is the trick which differentiates best from the good dbas and certainly from average ones as well. People who say windows is a bad o/s are wrong. If it would be bad, it wouldn't had been used by so many people. Its good that's why it stayed and dominated for so long. Its just the people who use it, they tend to behave it like a bad o/s. A very simple, example, ask any pure winddow admin, what does it mean by mount point and he would be blank as the term never comes across to him since window has made things so simple, there is no need to know all these things. Its hard to make windows do what you want so we tend to adopt whatever it gives to us and there, things start getting different from Linux/Solaris(put any *nix here). Does that mean all window admins are bad? Nope, I know some guys who make window based servers up much efficiently and use its fullest power. But when things are tied to a shiny interface, we tend to use that more and more often, what they say, comfort zone kinda thing happens. That's it.
s I mentioned, I can write decent, very high performing queries, but when it comes to administrator style tasks I tend to want to use a graphical user interface. That's not to say I don't have a good understanding of what the UI is actually doing for me - it's just I don't care to type it all in by hand :-)No admin would like to type things. If they really would had loved typind so much, they probably would had become developers <g> . That's why we make scripts , schedule them , just to make sure that we can sit back, have a cup of coffee and can truly live up to expectations that dba's don't do anything (just kidding).
suppose the best anology I can come up with is if I want to go to the New York Times website, I don't open telnet and do:
GET /default.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.nytimes.com
I open Firefox and type in New York and then press enter :-)I agree to what you said but doesn't matter how hiteck we may become, how many I's we include in our phone, life, we still have to eat by our hands only and that's the only way to enjoy it too isn't it ;-) .
Now for the Sql Server, Oracle difference in the Management tools, here comes an analogy from me which I give pretty often. Getting married for the first time and making sure that the married life goes smooth itself is a very big and tough task. And if you decide to get married, things only would become tougher. If you really want to make the second marriage a successful one, you need to forget all teh good/bad points of the last partner and have to live with and be happy with the ones of teh second one. If you would keep on comparing, you are going to be ending up screwing up things in a very nice manner. That's what is doing Sql Server in the first place and then oracle or vice-versa. There would be differences, theree would be some good/bad new things but that's what it is and with which you have to live with.
Hope you would have fun learning oracle and surely being over here as well.
Cheers
Aman....
PS: Just a note, please remove your email from the handle.