Software Spotlight
Product:
AGS SQL Server Utilities
Version:
1.0.2149.26346
Publisher:
Price:
$49.99
Developers play an important role in today’s IT environment. However, most of these developers spend valuable time developing common functions, like checking the leap year and reading or writing to the event log. AGS SQL Server 2005 Utilities can provide some of the common functions you need in .Net for SQL Server 2005, without you having to develop them yourself.
Installation and Configuration
No installation is needed to use AGS SQL Server 2005 Utilities. You just download the zipped file and extract it. A T-SQL script is available within the Help file, which you’ll need to execute.
You’ll need to modify the DLL path in the script. After running the script, you need to enable “clr enabled” by running the sp_configure stored procedure.
(sp_configure ‘clr enabled’ , 1)
After running the script, one stored procedure and twenty seven functions will be created in the master database.
Figure 1. List of functions installed by the AGE SQL Server 2005 Utility.
Instead of having to configure the tool manually, I would like to see the application use aa installation program for the install, although the manual installation is very easy.
Product Overview
The functions can be divided into nine categories.
Compress Functions
Compress functions are useful for users to compress values. Two compress methods, Deflate and GZip are available with this utility, as well as the respective decompress methods.
Function |
Purpose |
AGS_Deflate_Compress |
Compresses an input value using the Deflate (RFC 1951) algorithm. |
AGS_Deflate_DeCompress |
De-compresses an input buffer which has been compressed by AGS_Deflate_Compress using the Deflate (RFC 1951) algorithm. |
AGS_Gzip_Compress |
Compresses an input value using the Gzip (RFC 1952) algorithm. |
AGS_Gzip_DeCompress |
De-compresses an input buffer which has been compressed by AGS_Gzip_Compress using the Deflate (RFC 1952) algorithm. |
Date Functions
Leap year checking is the only date function that is available with this utility. I believe more functions in this category could be added to make it more useful.
Function |
Purpose |
AGS_IsLeapYear |
Returns true or false to indicate if the year passed is a leap year. |
Encryption Functions
Encryption is the most important function that developers use due to security reasons. This utility provides the Hash and Rijndael encryption algorithms. The Rijndael encryption algorithm is the most common used type.
Function |
Purpose |
AGS_Hash |
Hashes an input value using the Hash type selected. |
AGS_Rijndael_Encrypt |
Encrypts an input value using the Rijndael Encryption algorithm. |
AGS_Rijndael_DeEncrypt |
Decrypts an input value using the Rijndael Encryption algorithm. |
Event Log Functions
Most of you will need to read and write to the event log. Those functions also provided with this utility. Because the readfromeventlog function returns values in table format, you can use WHERE, GROUP, and ORDER commands to suit your requirements.
Figure 2. Values returned in table format by readtfromeventlog.