Toad Data Point – Data Compare Feature with SAP HANA

I was on the phone with a Toad Data Point customer last week and she said something like (paraphrased) this is the only solution that offered this key benefit and I have tried a lot of products out there. I thought I'd share that same feature/function/value here so others who may not have thought of it can take advantage of it as well.

Question – What is the key value of Toad Data Point/Intelligence Central solution? Data Connectivity and easy data manipulation capabilities. One such feature inside Toad Data Point is 'Data Compare'. You guessed it, Data Compare can help you compare tables in a source-Target model using a key column. Lets say a user with hot data in SAP HANA and archived data in Oracle is resolving query output discrepancies. A handy feature inside Toad Data Point- heterogeneous data compare comes well, handy. 

With Toad Data Point, you get to select a table in Oracle Database and compare to another table in SAP HANA based on a single or multiple key columns in a wizard driven GUI based experience. Once you have an anchor or reference column identified, Toad Data Point will display the data differences on the selected columns. Not only can you compare Oracle to SAP HANA; You could compare HANA to SQL Server or Oracle to Teradata, possibilities are endless. Imagine the value this would add to an analyst who is not as savvy in SQL scripting as may be some of the seasoned developers. Not only can you query a myriad of datasources, you could perform cross connection data manipulation activities, all in the classic Toad's visual drag and drop experience without night outs on stackoverflow looking for SQL statement help.

Another user stated early in the year about this same feature being a part of their QA effort in a migration project where a quick sampling through Toad Data Point's, Data Compare exposed a huge discrepancy. Testing groups compared SQL Server table in source to Oracle table target and although every bit of the data looks alike, Toad kept flagging them as different values. Turned out SQL Server source allowed and preserved trailing white spaces while Oracle target trimmmed the trailing white spaces during migration. It's not the spaces or the actual values but to have a solution do the heterogeneous comparison, the ability to automate that process through workflow automation on desktop or on the server using Intelligence Central, thats a great time saver for analysts and developers alike

Connect to a Data Source–>Right click on the source table in Object Explorer –> Click on Data Compare, The wizard will take you from here. Here is a video on how to use this feature in depth (with other ways of launching compare module too) 

If you havent tried this feature already, go ahead and give it a test drive. Enjoy!