Pete Finnigan's Oracle Security Weblog

I came across a post on the Oracle-l list by Jared titled "Schema Difference Tool" where Jared talks about Chris O'Sullivan's excellent tool T.O.Y.S. which can be used to test for differences in two database schemas. Jared http://www.impacttoys.com/index.htm - (broken link) points us to the tool and also to the fact that there is a free time limited download for testing but that you can download again.

I found out about Chris's tool quite a long time back and have always been very impressed with its abilities. I added a link to the tool on my links page quite a long time ago. This is what I said about it at the time:

"This is an excellent tool that allows you to manage your schema details. The tool can be used to capture schemas from more than one database and then from those schemas generate DDL to recreate the schema and also to compare two schemas. The tool is very fast and enjoys a lot of configuration options. The key to the success of this tool is the ability to compare a working production database for instance with a reference database and to generate DDL to alter the production database structure without loss of data so that it matches the reference database.
TOYS is in Beta test but seems solid and fast. A free time limited download is available. The web site contains a useful FAQ and comprehensive help is available with the software.

From a security perspective this tool is excellent for quickly capturing a schema definition including grants to be able to get a good picture of the structure off line. TOYS also offers a good online point and click interface to browse the captured schema data."

One thing I would add now to my security related points above is that T.O.Y.S. can also be used to check for differences between schemas if unauthorised changes are suspected and also if hacking attempts are also suspected.

This is an excellent, well written piece of software that is well worth looking at. http://www.impacttoys.com/download.htm - (broken link) Again TOYS can be found on Chris's website.