Data Modeling tools

[anuragmin]

Hi,
We are in the process of deciding on buying a Data Modeling Tool.

What are the best tools available in the market which will help me resverse engineer the Oracle database and also let me create new models.

Which one is better. ER Studio or ERWIN. Are there any tools which are better than these.

Are there any free tools available on the Net.

Thanks
Anurag

[Halo]

I'd go with ERwin.

[chrisrlong]

ERwin is my personal favorite. Mind you, that does not mean it's perfect by a long shot. It definitely has its share of issues, but the macro language and UDPs make it extremely powerful. Honestly not trying to do a plug this time, but with my book, I will be providing an ERwin template that will allow the automatic generation of very robust CRUD packages and triggers for all objects in a data model. This is a very powerful capability.

I have yet to use ER Studio.

Power Designer from Sybase, if it is still around, has a *much* nice interface than ERwin, but completely lacks (or at least lacked) a macro language.

Another tool that is gaining popularity is Visio, which I have barely used, and not the Enterprise version, which has all the power.

I looked quickly at Oracle's tool - Designer, I think - and was very unimpressed. It was *very* lacking in functionality, although I have heard others say that it has good functionality for feeding other Oracle tools. But it would seem that if you don't use these other tools, Designer is a poor choice.

Just my .02

- Chris

[Heath]

I've used PowerDesigner in the past and have found it to be very nice tool. You can read about it at http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling. If I could convince my management of the enormous benefits to using a CASE tool for developing and maintaining a data model, it's the one that I would recommend.

I have not used the latest versions, so I can't comment on their new UML modeling support, if that is of any interest to you. If not, then just look at the DataArchitect module for designing your database and the MetaWorks option to support project collaboration.

You can download an evaluation version from the web site. From what I remember, their evaluation copies are fully functional, excluding the ability to save your work. Perhaps Chris will do the same and let us know if the newer versions have the functionality that he wants. The last version that I used was 6.1 and they have made substantial improvements between then an now, v8.0.

I thought Designer2000 was a joke. JMHO.

[pando]

You have Macro language in ER Studio as well although I never used it, the annoy thing about ER Studio is that you cant specify tablespace for your indexes or data, you cannot specify storage parameters otherwise it's pretty easy to use

So is Oracle Designer that bad...? I was gonna try it hehe ;D

[macswell]

Hi -

My experience with ERwin (the last time I used it was about 1 year ago) was mixed. I was developing a single logical model, to be implemented on seperate physical databases running on seperate hardware. ERwin was incapable of targeting multiple physical destinations (it assumed all objects were to be built in the same schema). The other problem was that the generated DDL was flaky (often generating valid syntax, but in the wrong sequence; such as generating a "create index" statement before the "create table" statement.)

On the up side, the specification options for the single destination schema were extensive.

I evaluated demos of ER Studio at the time that were impressive, and they were "supposed to" handle the multiple physical targets, but I never got the chance to put it through a real project to verify its capability.

Tim