Recommended Sybase-related WWW links

This page has some links to useful information about ASE or Sybase.
Please note that, insofar these sites promote any products or services, the presence of links to these sites on this page does not constitute an endorsement of those products or services by Rob Verschoor/Sypron B.V. (with the exception of the Sybase products, which I do endorse).

Categories

Frequently requested Sybase reference documents
Other documentation sources
Query tools
Miscellaneous tools
Sybase ASE vs. other DBMSs
News, information and user forums
Miscellaneous links
Sybase resources (non-English)

Blogs
Podcasts
Books about ASE/Sybase

Frequently requested Sybase reference documents
These are links to some Sybase reference documents that will answer many frequently asked questions:

A new whitepaper describing the feature known as 'Compatibility Mode', which is included in ASE version 15.0.3 ESD#1 (released March 2009).

The new "ASE 15 Optimizer Best Practices" whitepaper: a must-read when you're upgrading to ASE 15.

A whitepaper about some more intricate aspects of session-level optimization settings in ASE 15. Though pretty dry and complex stuff, when you're into performance tuning, better check this out.

The "Targeted Release Schedule" for ASE (i.e. upcoming EBFs and IRs; includes lists of planned bugs to be fixed).

Maximum amount of shared memory for different ASE versions and platforms (for older ASE versions, go here).

ASE (server) certification info for various hardware/OS platforms, I/O devices, etc. Includes information about required OS patches.

Information about ASE/Open Client compatibility on different hardware/OS platforms, etc. Another page with additional details is here.

End-of-life notifications for ASE (and other Sybase products), and the underlying policy.

An overview of the issues related to client disconnects and the KEEPALIVE setting (a TCP/IP property).

A FAQ about 64-bit vs. 32-bit ASE. Also, the following doc contains information about migrating from a 32-bit to a 64-bit ASE server.

Other documentation sources
Some other places where you can find useful information about ASE:

The Sybase FAQ at http://www.isug.com/Sybase_FAQ/
Highly recommended; contains lots of useful information.

A Sybase whitepaper about ASE on Linux
A must-read when you're using ASE on Linux; contains some Linux-specific performance tuning tips. It's located at http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1024906.

Michael Peppler's ASE-on-Linux documents.
Also mandatory reading for anyone running ASE on Linux. A FAQ is located at http://www.peppler.org/FAQ/linux.html; an installation guide for ASE-on-Linux at http://www.peppler.org/linux-install.html.

Kian Spongsveen's ASE-on-Linux HOWTO
Less detailed on installation than Michael Peppler's docus above, but goes a step further in guiding novice Sybase users into their first steps to use the installed ASE server: http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Sybase-ASE-HOWTO/index.html.

On-line Sybase product manuals http://sybooks.sybase.com/
Always handy when you need to look up something; all product manuals can be searched online and downloaded as PDF files.
For ASE manuals, go to here directly.
Documentation about older ASE versions (like 11.0) is at http://sybooks.sybase.com/nav/base.do?archive=1.

Sybase on-line Technical Document Library http://www.sybase.com/support/techdocs/
A big -and searchable- collection of technical documents, white papers, etc. by Sybase.

http://www.outlands.demon.co.uk/sybase/index.html
An excellent overview of the issues related to basic ASE connectivity, such as the interfaces file, network adresses, "dscp" and "dsedit" etc.

Leigh Kennedy's web site, http://dba.webhop.net
Contains a useful document about IQ.

White Sands Technology, Inc. has published two whitepapers about data fragmentation and database corruption. Although these whitepapers are oriented towards some of White Sands' own products, they also contain some useful general information.

Poster of ASE system tables (PDF format)
At the following links, a number of documents can be downloaded. One of these is a PDF document of a system tables poster for ASE. Don't bother about if the language isn't yours: all table/column names are still in English.
To get a printed copy, call your local Sybase office and try to order it; the part number is 70204-01-1250-03 for ASE 12.5 and 70204-01-1502-01 for ASE 15.0.2 (both English versions).

Poster of RepServer system tables (PDF format)
At the following links, a number of documents can be downloaded. One of these is a PDF document of a system tables poster for Replication Server. Don't bother about if the language isn't yours: all table/column names are still in English.

Query tools
ASE comes with the query tools isql (ASCII, all platforms), SQLAdvantage (GUI, Windows only) and -in ASE 15.0- dbISQL (GUI, Java-based). For those who are not satisfied with these tools, there are some alternatives :

"sqsh" (a great isql replacement): http://www.sqsh.org
An ASCII query tool for ASE. "sqsh" is much better than isql -- in fact, some DBAs say they cannot work without sqsh anymore. For sqsh tricks, go here.

Anders Wikholm's ASE Client: http://www.moulin-noir.com/softwareindex.html
Anders Wikholm wrote an ASE GUI that looks especially useful when you need to dig into actual data values in ASE tables.

ASEISQL: http://dm.char.com.ua/ase/aseisql.htm
ASEISQL is a free query tool by Dmitry Lukyanov. It's quite like SQL Advantage but has some handy additional features.

iSQL-Viewer: http://www.isqlviewer.com/
iSQL-Viewer is a free GUI query tool with some really handy features that can be used with ASE as well as other databases. It's JDBC-based and runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Aqua Data Studio:http://www.aquafold.com/
A Java-based freeware GUI query tool for ASE as well as many other databases. Note that more recent versions appear to require licensing.

"Orac": http://www.tux.org/orac-dba/
Orac is a multi-platform, multi-database aware, open source database administration tool written in perl/Tk. Despite the name, there's no inherent association with Oracle behind this.

"Like Sybase Central": http://perso.wanadoo.fr/laserquest/linux/
This isn't actually a query tool, but a free GUI admin tool for ASE; it runs on Linux (and apparently other platforms as well).

Thomas Gagne's 'is' tool: http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/
This tool is another isql replacement. It can return a result set as HTML or XML (also as plain text), as well as read the ASE login name & password from a cookie. It works well, but you'll have to compile it yourself - YMMV.

"SQuirreL SQL Client": http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net/
A Java-based GUI query client; can access any RDBMS supporting JDBC. Freeware.

"Advanced Query Tool": http://www.querytool.com/
An ODBC-based commercial GUI query tool.

"DbVisualizer": http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/
A JDBC-based commercial GUI query tool; free evaluation available.

Miscellaneous tools
Some useful ASE-related tools (these are all located on external websites; for some tools located at www.sypron.nl, go here):

Ed Barlow's Generic Enterprise Manager (GEM):
http://www.edbarlow.com
Ed has created an enterprise management tool -- probably the first to provide such functionality for ASE installations. If I were still a DBA, I think I'd want to have this.
Recommended. (Oh, and it supports MS-SQL as well).

Ed Barlow's Extended System Stored Procedures:
http://www.edbarlow.com/gem/procs_only/index.htm
I highly recommend these excellent stored procedures.

Michael Peppler's SybPerl:
http://www.peppler.org/
A great Perl-to-Sybase interface.

dbschema.pl (originally by David Owen):
'dbschema.pl' is a tool to reverse-engineer DDL in an ASE database: http://www.peppler.org/downloads/dbschema-2_4_2.zip

David Cole's Python-to-Sybase interface:
http://www.object-craft.com.au/projects/sybase/

Tom Poindexter's Sybase extension for Tcl: http://www.nyx.net/~tpoindex/tcl.html#Sybtcl
Note that this is a few years old; I haven't personally used it so I'm not sure if it works with recent ASE versions.

Sybase interface for PHP:
http://www.php.net/sybase
Listed here for completeness.

Kevin Sherlock's sp__optdiag: http://www.teamsybase.net/kevin.sherlock/ASE.html
A stored proc giving almost exactly the same information as the ASE optdiag client tool.

Brian Ceccarelli's site, http://www.dbpowersuite.com
Contains a large number of DBA scripts and tools.

http://www.werysoft.com
Brad Wery (of TeamSybase) has created a database development tool that supports -among others- ASE.

http://www.dbainformer.com
Gregory Surilov created a free monitoring tool for ASE: 'DBA informer'.

http://www.sqleffects.com
SQL Effects have a product called "SQL Effects Clarity", which lets you compare database schemas; it supports all versions of ASE.

http://pros.orange.fr/dbadevil/en/index.html
Various tools by Thierry "DBA Devil" Antinolfi: Log Explorer, Page Viewer and more.

Sybase ASE vs. other DBMSs
For those ASE DBAs who are unable to avoid that other database brand...

Sybase ASE 15 vs. MySQL 5.0 performance comparison
http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1045499
Describes comparitive TPC test results between ASE 15.0 and MySQL 5.0. A useful document if you need ammunition in favour of ASE.

Sybase-vs-Oracle comparison (technical & objective) http://www.rocket99.com/sybase/syb_vs_ora.html
A useful comparison of concepts and terminology in ASE and Oracle.

Brian Ceccarelli's site, http://talussoftware.com/DBPowerSuite/index.html
Some interesting views on various Oracle "features" from a Sybase DBA's perspective (follow the links on the lower left-hand side of the screen)

Ed Barlow's Oracle Crib Sheet: http://www.edbarlow.com/document/EdsOracleCribSheet.doc.

An Oracle-to-ASE Migration Guide.

An MSSQLServer-to-ASE Migration Guide. And another one.
And lastly an old migration document, covering MS-SQL 7.

A DB2-to-ASE Migration Guide.

http://www.psoug.org:80/reference/sybase.html
Warning: this page is NOT recommended. It may look like a comprehensive Sybase-to-Oracle comparison, but it's so full of factual errors that it's basically useless. For example, it is stated that 'SQL Server runs only on Windows' and that ASE doesn't have an equivalent of bulk insert. Even the Oracle side of this reference isn't fully correct. The author also seems to have mixed up Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere and Microsoft SQL Server.

News, information and user forums
For keeping in touch with the rest of the world...

ISUG (International Sybase User Group): http://www.isug.com
You should become an ISUG member if you're not - it's great value for money.

Sybase-related newsgroup on Usenet: comp.databases.sybase Further newsgroups exist at Sybase's own news server: forums.sybase.com
These newsgroups are great places for asking your questions. The newsgroups at forums.sybase.com are read by Sybase engineers and TeamSybase members, so there's a good chance of getting the right answer to your question.
Don't forget that you can also search the newsgroups! I prefer the Google newsgroup search (the Google archive includes the old Dejanews and goes back as far as the 80's).

Tek-Tips forum
Another Sybase-related newsgroups/forum.

http://searchdatabase.com/
An interesting site with lots of database-related information and news.

The ASE-on-Linux mailing list
Another good resource for ASE+Linux, located at http://mathforum.org/epigone/ase-linux-list

Discussion Forum about SQLBacktrack
Though not restricted to ASE users, here's a new site with a discussion forum about SQLBacktrack. It's located at http://sqlbacktrack.eu.tt.

Team Sybase (those friendly guys who answer all your questions in the newsgroups at news://forums.sybase.com). Also contains info about these newsgroups.

Miscellaneous links
As the title says....

Recorded sessions from Techwave 2007
http://www.sybase.com/techwave/conference_content/technical_session_webcasts
Online replays of various Techwave 2007 sessions (check out the great ASE Cluster Edition demo by Dave Wein in Peter Thawley's data management plenary)

Lev Selector's web site, http://www.selectorweb.com/
Contains useful pointers for various IT-related topics. I often use this site when looking for info about something...

Pal's Linux RDBMS Library, http://www.palslib.com
Various links to resources about RDBMS and Linux stuff... as the name suggests.

http://www.universalthread.com
Information on Sybase and other RDBMSs, and IT news.

http://www.surrex.com/sybase/
Database-related information and news.

http://Database.ITtoolbox.com
ITtoolbox Database - lots of database-related information.

Sybase resources (non-English)

http://www.dbasupport.com.mx/
A site from Mexico (Spanish/Castellano)

http://www.mtbase.com/forums/inicio.jsp
Spanish-language newsgroups by Sybase Colombia (Spanish/Castellano)

Blogs

http://blogs.sybase.com/database
Blogs related to Sybase's enterprise database products featuring some of the data mgmt evanglism team folks, including, occasionally, myself.

http://blogs.sybase.com/
Various blogs by other Sybase engineers.

http://www.froebe.net/blog
Jason Froebe's blog

http://aseperformance.blogspot.com/
Jeff Garbus' blog

http://sybasease.blogspot.com/
Robert Vollman's blog

Podcasts

http://www.sybase.com/asetechtalk
Various ASE-related podcasts hosted by Stefan Karlsson of ASE engineering

Books
Please follow this link to my page about Sybase-related books.

This document is located at www.sypron.nl/syblinks.html

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