January 6, 2005 at 2:28 am
Can you please advise me about data modeling software(ie visio, ER/Studio, ERwin...etc) , how good is it and what is the best tool from your experince?
Thanks
January 6, 2005 at 7:48 am
I am sure other folks can answer a lot better.
First, I am not big fan of Visio for dta modeling. Maybe I don't know enough to do all the work but it seems more about drawing out db modeling what we have and print out then actual design. I like ERWin and little price and if you have SQL and Oracle and other DB solution, that is one tool that you can use easily.
If you just have SQL and not actively involved with designing, SQL Diagram that comes with SQL Server is not that terriable. Many people can disagree with me and I also should disagree with myself's opinion but that works for low level designing. Not recommendable for really wanted to get to work though.
ERWin 4.0 is the version that I used to work with and other folks liked it.
January 6, 2005 at 11:07 pm
I've been building using Visio for the last few weeks. It has a couple of nice features over SQL Diagram, but not many. Be aware with Visio though, you have to be using the Enterprise Architect version in order to actually make a database. The Professional version will let you design a database, but doesn't include the add-in needed to export the database to a SQL script. Really annoying if you've spend a few days or weeks diagramming something.
Though Visio is great cause I can visually see what I'm doing, and know that I've set the right relationships up, it is really only "ok" at doing tables and indexes. Its annoying at views (no source table column drag-and-drop), and I've kept away from whatever other features it may provide. At least it has colours so I can display the different types of tables.
Julian Kuiters
juliankuiters.id.au
January 7, 2005 at 6:51 am
I've found ER/Studio to be good. Although, haven't used it in a coupler years, it had good functionality, was easy to use, and was cheaper than ER/Win.
January 7, 2005 at 8:12 am
At work, I use ERWin 4.14. It has most of the bugs worked out of it and seems pretty stable. It is expensive unless your company is going to buy it for you.
I have used previous versionos of ER Studio. Personally, I did not care for it at all.
Visio is pretty much a joke right now.
I am going to demo Case Studio 2 (http://www.casestudio.com) to the user group that I lead tomorrow. For the price, it is a good tool. It will do more different databases than ERWin.
January 7, 2005 at 9:18 am
I've used ERwin for about seven years, but since CA bought it, it's gone downhill. True - many of the release 4 bugs are gone with the 4.1.4 release - but not all. The product hasn't been the same since LogicWorks sold out.
You might want to try looking at Embarcadero ER/Studio. It's almost as expensive (if I rememeber correctly), but seemed cleaner. I can't give you a lot of details because I only saw it at PASS in September 2004 and haven't had the time to trial it.
http://www.embarcadero.com/products/erstudio/index.html
January 7, 2005 at 10:11 am
I have used Embarcadero ER/Studio in several locations for years. It is very good. I have used ERwin once, but was not impressed.
Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue
January 7, 2005 at 12:24 pm
I’ve been using ER/Studio for several years, and have been pretty happy with it. Embarcadero is continually updating it, and they’ve added a number of nice features. We looked at ERWin before choosing ER/Studio, but didn’t like where ERWin drew the line between logical and physical modeling – too much of the definition work that we traditionally do in the logical modeling phase could only be documented in the physical model. For example, you could specify a datatype of “text” in the logical model, but had to be in the physical model to define the actual length. This is more of a work-style issue, so this may or may not matter to you.
The two features in ER/Studio that are probably the most valuable to me are the macros (written in Sax Basic) and the merge reports.
I use macros for a number of routine tasks, including naming objects that follow standard conventions, like PKs & FKs; converting full English attribute names to column names based on our list of accepted abbreviations; and importing/exporting metadata from/to Excel. Only a few people in my company have ER/Studio, so when I need to share a data model with a team, I export an image of the data model diagram and a metadata report to Excel and send that out. If definitions need to be updated, team members can make the changes in Excel, and I can use a macro to import the updates back into the data model.
With the merge function, I can compare all or part of a data model with either another model or a live database, and produce a report listing the differences. I use the reports in a number of ways – to check for anomalies in a database, to compare development and production databases, etc. Because the reports can be produced as an intermediate step while creating a SQL script, I’m also considering using these reports to help document schema change requests for Sarbanes-Oxley.
You might also get some insight on different modeling tools from the discussion groups at http://www.infoadvisors.com/.
January 7, 2005 at 8:44 pm
I've used Erwin for the past five years and I agree with previous comments. It was a good product when owned by Platinum in version 3.52. Since it has been acquired by CA version 4.0 and higher -- it is full of bugs especially when working with large models. Erwin reminds me of the level of buginess of Windows 95 when it first came out. The technical support is horrible and consists of Indians who give you lame workarounds and then ask you to close out the call.
Visio is a joke and only handles phyiscal modeling with limited functionality when compared to other enterprise data modeling software, but it may suite your needs if you just want to do physical modeling of smaller databases.
Fabforce makes a decent open source data modeling tool which is on par with Visio http://fabforce.net/ (and it's free)
I have not used ER/Studio or PowerDesigner. This article is a little dated, but it shows the top three data modeling tools by market share are Erwin, ER/Studio and PowerDesigner. I've heard good things about PowerDesigner from Sybase (it supports multiple RDBMS).
http://www.liderdigital.com/documentos/Market_overview_data_modeling_tools_and_trends.pdf
February 21, 2005 at 1:55 pm
ERwin has great functionality as it allows a true Complete / Compare for impact analysis amd model synchronization and generates a database alter script and works with about 24 databases
February 21, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Case Studio 2 turned out to be very good. It will also do data flow diagrams. I believe the price is around $400. It will do more databases than ERWin and is also extensible through templates that you can design if you are willing to do the work.
The one drawback that I saw with it was that it cannot do a compare and give you a change script that you can apply to a database.
Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply