erwin Data Modeler Reviews

For the first 30 years of my career, I worked on many small projects. Since erwin was released, I used it to help develop projects up until about two years ago. At that time, I moved to a new company and I still use erwin in my current role.

When I moved to the new company, I recommended erwin and explained it to my colleagues and my clients. When the most recent version was released, I looked at the licensing and became familiar with its new features and benefits.

I have developed a couple of projects myself in the past two years, including one that had to do with mail, in Serbia, which was an interesting project. Another and the other to do with handling automotive equipment maintenance. One of the projects is something that I started from the beginning, whereas the other was reengineered with changes made and new features added.

I have also worked with erwin from a higher-level role. Rather than developing smaller projects, I have taken responsibility for a much larger project worth several million Euros.

In general, if you start using erwin from the beginning of a project then it provides a lot of benefits. You have to start with the process modeling, and then find data and create an entity, and the process continues. Essentially, you have to have something before you create the data model. However, if you're talking about reengineering a project that has existing data models or existing processes, then the benefits of using erwin are really big. You can save 50% of the time if you're working on reengineering existing processes or existing data models.

The visual data models are okay for helping to overcome data source complexity. If the project is started with erwin from the beginning then I can create the database, stored procedures, and everything that I need. However, when it comes to reengineering an existing product, and if the database changes then some of the stored procedures, as well as other things also need to change. For example, in one project, the original database was Informix and the new one is Microsoft SQL Server.

The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model. If you have a legacy database like Informix, Oracle, SQL Server, or something similar, then you need to create a data warehouse database. These use completely different logic and you need to create some procedures to map the tables.

The number of databases should be extended.

To have more documentation or available knowledge on how to connect is very important. This is probably the most important issue that I have experienced. Specifically, I would like more information on how to connect, how to transfer, and how to do the mapping from a legacy database.

If you try to open a file from an older version of erwin, you can only open files from one version back. This is all that they support, so they need to add the option of opening all older versions. As it is now, they push people to buy a new version every year.

We have been using erwin since the beginning when it was first released by Logic Works in 1993.

There is absolutely no problem with the stability.

In terms of scalability, there is not enough long-term support for each version of erwin. In the past, the extensions of some erwin models, or files were ER1. After that, the file extension was ERW and now it is ERAN, which created some confusion.

In my current company, I am the only person using erwin because we are not specialists in development. In my previous company, five or six people were using it.

The support is okay and I am satisfied with it. However, it's a little slower getting support for the role that I'm in now, as compared to when I was at my previous company.

In the past, the support was always okay. Within a few hours, I either had an answer or was at least speaking with them. We sent emails to discuss how to solve the problem.

Overall, I'm really satisfied with the support.

I have used several other modeling tools in the past, including SAP PowerDesigner and Bizagi. My experience with them has depended on what I needed to do. For example, Bizagi has a completely different way of developing a model. I am not satisfied with it because they don't follow the rules for relational modeling.

On the other hand, Power Designer is quite a good tool that works well. It's a complex tool that can be used for data modeling and process modeling. They use BPMN methodology and in terms of functionality, it has enough. From a cost perspective, it is cheaper than erwin.

The initial setup is straightforward, it was no problem.

The installation can be done in five minutes. The new version may take a little longer, but it is very fast.

When we have completed, we have erwin come to analyze the process.

We start with global entities, or how I can see it on a higher level without talking about the relationship model. I am looking for the relation, and foreign keys, then we search for the stored procedure and functions.

We look at the first creating the keys, the primary and alternative keys in the tables, entities, and at the end, we develop the indexing. The indexing requires daily analysis when you put the database in operation they look at the speed of everything. you can change the indexing to make your database faster.

In my previous company, there we had a really large return on investment from using erwin. In one of the systems that we re-engineered, there were more than 2,000 tables. If these had to be created from the beginning then it would have taken a really long time to collect all of the information. When it comes to reengineering, the database usually stays the same with perhaps 20% to 30% of the model being modified.

In my current company, we are trying to educate our clients on using erwin. Many of them are not using it in their everyday business. The problem is that bigger organizations, like government departments, usually want to have somebody from outside their own organization develop the solution.

The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world. I think that for the United States and Europe, the price is probably okay. However, in Serbia, the salary of an IT engineer is perhaps 50% of what it is in the United States. Because of this, erwin needs to have a different pricing model for different countries.

For example, you cannot sell products in places like Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, and other places in this part of Europe at the same price as countries like Germany, Norway, or the United States. This is something that needs to change from a licensing perspective.

In terms of erwin's code generation and the accurate engineering of data sources, for some of the databases, it is quite okay. However, in others, it is not exactly following the rules of the database in the way that I want to generate the model.

There are two ways to generate a model. The first is to create a schema, which is a textual file that contains everything needed to create a complete database structure. The second is to have erwin connect to the databases directly. In this case, erwin installs and creates the database.

In some cases, it is better to first create a DB schema, which is an SQL file where you can look for syntax errors or other problems in the code. Once complete, you can create the database, including the tables and everything else.

When I start to use erwin in a project, it is normally right after I analyze the process. The second thing I do is look at the global entities, so I can view the system from a high level without dealing with the relationship model. After that, I start looking for relationships, creating the primary and alternative keys in the table. I then start looking for foreign keys. At that stage, I begin to look for stored procedures and functions. After this, I work on the creation of indexes.

The indexing needs to be analyzed daily, once the database is put into operation. This helps with database performance. When you change the indexing, the database gets faster.

My advice for anybody who is planning to use erwin is that sometimes, it should be used to develop models right from the beginning. It will depend on the project, as well as the organization and the experience that they have with erwin. It is also possible to have different people and different teams from the same company working on one model. For example, we have three development centers that are all working on the same model.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using erwin DM is that it pushes you to use the notation and methodology exactly. You must follow the rules. Several years ago, they started adding tools and options that are used to verify a model, and this functionality helps to point out mistakes in the models. Once the model is correct, you can move on to working with the databases and the specifics of each one. You can move very easily between databases such as Informix, Oracle, and MySQL, without losing much time.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

erwin is deployed on individual desktops and the individual users install it or have a help desk person install it for them.

Our primary use case is for during any type of project development or maintenance and application maintenance, we go through a process of modeling our data before it gets put into the database. We interact with the application development teams to determine what their requirements are and build the data models, and then turn them into actual physical database items.

erwin has definitely helped us improve our enforcement of standards and database design best practices. Before we really started using the tool or having a data modeling type of team, application development efforts all had their own database structures. Developers tend to not be too concerned with the data. They just want to make everything work for their application as easy as possible. Having the tool and having a team built around it has really helped us make sure that we're following the best normalization processes, we're not duplicating data, and we have a standard naming scheme that everybody has to follow.

The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to.

We've definitely expounded on the amount of features we use. They've built in some automated naming standards that have been really helpful for us. That's probably the biggest leap we've used. We've always used the comments and notes features, but the automated naming features have been very helpful.

Its ability to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage is extremely helpful because they give a visual to not only developers and database administrators, but the user base themselves. So the typical user isn't going to understand database functionality. Being able to show them a picture of how their data is actually going to look in the database is very helpful for their understanding of what we're trying to do with their data.

erwin's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models in terms of accuracy and speed for keeping them in sync is very good. We utilize that service quite a bit. The one drawback is if you have an extremely large complex model, the compare process can take quite a bit of time, more than four hours. 

Its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. The fact that you can generate the DDL correctly from the model saves us a bunch of time. I would say it saves us around 40% to 50%. So even though you can generate the DDL, you still have to go in and tweak it a little bit. 

The only real complaint I have is the time it takes to do a database comparison on a large model. If they could speed that up, that would be the only thing I can think of that needs improvement.

We've been using erwin since about 2000. We were using another product before, but it was way too cumbersome, so we switched to erwin.

Stability is excellent. It's been a solid product for years and I don't expect it to change.

It's extremely scalable. Our environment has hundreds of tables. 

We have five data modelers using the tool. That's the team that actually works with the app dev and DBAs to actually come up with the database design. Then we have another five users that act more in a read-only type of mode. They just want to look at the data models, but they don't actually do any of the design work.

Their support was excellent. Typically it has to do with going through the upgrade process. If we have an issue, we'll reach out to them. The other thing we've had to reach out to them about was the time it was taking to do a data comparison on our extremely large model to the actual physical database. They were very helpful and very professional.

We don't typically have problems transitioning between the models. We did last time, but it was actually an error on our end. It wasn't an error on the erwin end.

We were using Cayenne. We switched because it was cumbersome.

The initial setup is typically straightforward. Just follow their instructions and everything goes pretty smoothly.

For the Data Modeler portion itself, on each desktop, the setup took around half an hour, and we have around 10 desktops.

We didn't necessarily have a deployment strategy. We just gave the product to anybody that thought they needed it and let them run with it.

For maintenance, we need one person, but it's definitely not a full-time job. It's just adding and subtracting users and going through the upgrade process when we do that. As far as installation, everybody basically installs it themselves. We don't require a full-time person for that either.

We have a team around it, so if we add our data modeling team up, we use it about six hours a day per person. That would be about 18 hours a day for those guys. The read-only users rarely use it, so they're pretty insignificant. 

We probably only use 10% to 20% of the functionality and I don't see us expanding on that a whole lot. There's a lot of neat little things in there, but we don't have time to implement them all. There's some overhead that goes with those functions that we choose not to undertake.

Since we got a new guy on our team, he's gotten into some of those functions and has been able to utilize some of that stuff some more. We're actually probably closer to 30% or 40% of the functions at this point. We're not thinking about expanding because of the overhead. 

I don't remember what our costs are. I know they just recently switched from a per seat type of licensing to a concurrent user type of licensing agreement, which is neither here nor there. I don't think it has increased or decreased the cost at all, but it's not obtrusive or invasive as far as the cost goes. It's fairly affordable.

There are also internal costs if you have hosted on-prem because you have to have a server and database to stand it up on.

We didn't evaluate another solution because I had used erwin at another location and was extremely familiar with it. And I had also used Visio and some more manual-type methods like Visio. At the point that we decided to switch over, I was confident that erwin was the best solution out there.

erwin is by far the best tool I've ever used. 

My advice to somebody considering this solution is to go for it. It's easy. The functionality is fantastic. It's easy to pick up. It does basically everything you could want it to do.

The automation of reusable design rules and standards has helped us immensely once we implemented it because having the automated naming standards and things like that, we don't have to go in and think about it. We don't have to go in and physically type it. Between generating the DDL and getting it into physical implementation was saving us 40% to 50% of time. It's because of those automated features that that's happening as opposed to having to sit there and type out the DDL from scratch, it saves a ton of time.

It produces a time savings of about 40%.

The accuracy and the speed of this solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources absolutely make the cost of the tool worth it.

My advice would be to let things evolve over time. Start with the basics first. Just get into the ERD functions first and then start implementing some of the automated naming standards and things like that as you go. Otherwise, if you try to dive into the whole thing, you're just going to get overwhelmed because the product is so deep as far as features go. It's extremely intuitive. As far as the basics go, as far as getting your ERDs established, it's probably the easiest tool I've ever used. If you understand the basics of database design, it's extremely natural. If you have no clue about database design, then your learning curve is going to be large no matter what tool you pick. But erwin definitely cuts that learning curve down just because of its intuitiveness.

Once you start diving into the automated feature sets like naming standards and things like that, the learning curve there is a little steeper, but it's still not too bad. For a brand new person, if you try to delve into the automated stuff and all the additional functionality, you're just going to get overwhelmed and feel that there is too much overhead. But you don't need to implement all those features right off the bat.

I would rate erwin a ten out of ten.

We use erwin DM as a data modeling tool. All projects in the data warehouse area go through the erwin model first and get reviewed and get approved. That's part of the project life cycle. And then we exude the scripts out of DM into Snowflake, which is our target database. Any changes that happen after that also go through erwin and we then make a master copy of the erwin model.

Our solution architecture for projects that involve erwin DM and Snowflake is an on-prem Data Modeler desktop version, and we have a SQL database behind it and that's where the models are stored. In terms of erwin Data Modeler, Snowflake is the only database we're using.

We are not utilizing a complete round-trip from DM for Snowflake. We are only doing one side of it. We are not doing reverse-engineering. We only go from the data model to the physical layer.

We use erwin Data Modeler for all enterprise data warehouse-related projects. It is very vital that the models should be up and running and available to the end-users for their reporting purposes. They need to be able to go through them and to understand what kinds of components and attributes are available. In addition, the kinds of relationships that are built in the data warehouse are visible through erwin DM. It is very important to keep everybody up to the mark and on the same page. We distribute erwin models to all the business users, our business analysts, as well as the developers. It's the first step for us. Before something gets approved we generally don't do any data work. What erwin DM does is critical for us.

erwin DM's support for Snowflake is very helpful from the data modeling perspective and, obviously, the JDBC and native connectivity also helps us in simplifying the push mechanism we have in erwin DM. 

Primarily, we use erwin for data modeling only, the functionality which is available to do logical models and the physical model. Those are the two areas which we use the most: we use a conceptual model first and the logical model, and then the physical model.

When we do the conceptual data model, we will look at the source and how the objects in the source interact, and that will give us a very clear understanding of how the data is set up in the source environment. The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc. The physical model, obviously, helps in executing the data model in Snowflake, on the physical layer.

Compatibility and support for cloud-based databases is very important in our environment because Snowflake is the only database to which we push our physical data structures. So any data modeling tool we use should be compatible with a cloud data warehouse, like Snowflake. It is definitely a very important functionality and feature for us.

We are planning to move, in 2021, into their server version, where multiple data modelers can work at the same time and share their models. It has become a pain point to merge the models from individual desktops and get them into a single data model, when multiple data modelers are working on a particular project. It becomes a nightmare for the senior data modeler to bring them together, especially when it comes to recreating them when you want to merge them. That's difficult. So we are looking at the version that will be a server-based model, where the data modelers can bring the data out, they can share, and they can merge their data models with existing data model on the server.

The version we're not using now—the server version—would definitely help us with the pain point when it comes to merging the models. When you have the desktop version, merging the models, two into one, requires more time. But when we go over to the server, the data models can automatically pull and push.

We will have to see what the scalability is like in that version.

Apart from that, the solution seems to be fine.

I've been using erwin DM for years, since the early 2000s and onwards. It's a very robust tool for data modeling purposes.

We have five to seven data modelers working on it at any moment in time. We have not seen any scalability issues, slowness, or that it is not supporting that level of use, because it's all desktop-based

When we go into the server model, where the web server is involved, we will have to see. And the dataset storage in the desktop model is also very limited, so I don't think going to the server model is going to impact scalability.

In our company, erwin DM is used only in the data warehouse area at this moment. I don't see any plans, from the management perspective, to extend it. It's mostly for ER diagrams and we will continue to use it in the same way. Depending on the usage, the number of concurrent users might go up a little bit.

I have interacted with erwin's technical support lately regarding the server version and they have been very proactive in answering those questions as well as following up with me. They ask if they have resolved the issue or if anything still needs to be done. I'm very happy with erwin's support.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using erwin DM, irrespective of whether it's for Snowflake or not, is that having the model upfront and getting it approved helps in reducing project go-live time. Everybody is on the same page: all the developers, how they interact, how they need to connect the various objects to generate their ETL processes. It also definitely helps business analysts and end-users to understand how to write their Tableau reports. If they want to know where the objects are, how they connect to each other, and whether they are a one-to-one or one-to-many relationship, etc., they can get it out of this solution. It's a very central piece of the development and the delivery process.

We use Talend as our ETL and BI vendor for workload. We don't combine it with erwin DM. Right now, each is used for its own specific need and purpose. erwin DM is mostly for our data modeling purposes, and Talend is for integration purposes.

Overall, erwin DM's support for Snowflake is very good. It's very stable and user-friendly and our data modelers live, day in and day out, on it. No complaints. There is nothing that impacts their performance.

We use the erwin Data Modeler tool to document conceptual, logical, and physical data design. Business data models capture the understanding of the data from a business perspective, which can then drive physical design to ensure data is represented and used correctly.

The automated generation of the DDL ensures that the data store looks exactly as the data design. It also ensures that the standards that are governed are followed and implemented successfully.

We use the diagrams and data dictionary capabilities to help users understand the data environments, as well as how the data relates to each other. We'll use the naming standard master file to govern and ensure that we have consistent naming and abbreviations across and within data stores. We use the forward engineering templates to standardize and govern the generation of the data definition language that is used to actually make the changes to the data stores. We also use the Compare capability to ensure that we have up to date production data models. And we are looking forward to the integration of the Data Modeler metadata with the data intelligence suite in R2.

The visual data models for helping to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage are excellent. A picture speaks 1,000 words. Seeing a picture that shows you how the data relates to each other helps you better understand what the data is and how to use it. Pairing that information with a dictionary, which has the definitions of the tables, columns, the entities, and attributes, ensures that the users understand what the data is so that they can use it best and most successfully.

Its ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models in terms of accuracy and speed for keeping them in sync is excellent. 

We don't typically use the configurable workspace and modeling canvas because while the platform allows for the flexibility to dynamically include multiple colors and multiple themes, feedback from business users is that the multiple colors and themes can become overwhelming. When you do that, you need to include a key so that people understand what the colors mean.

Its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts our development time. By how much depends on the number of changes that are required within the data store. It is certainly better to automate the forward engineering of the DDL creation, rather than having someone manually type it all out and then possibly make a human error with spelling irregularities.

Its code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources. It decreases development time because it's automated.

I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community.

I would also like to see a greater amount of integration with the erwin Data Intelligence Suite and the erwin Web Portal for the diagram delivery. That would be beneficial to all.

I have been using erwin for twenty years. 

It's very stable, especially having been available for use for so many years.

It is scaling well to include the new data structures, rather than being stagnant and only continuing to support the older DBMS types.

We have over 100 Data Modelers in my company and the users of the metadata go into the 1,000s.

We have an administrator who is responsible for the software upgrades, we have a governance community in the Center of Excellence, and we have the actual Data Modelers themselves who provide the delivery of the physical data models. We have data architects who create business, conceptual, and logical data models. And then, of course, we have our developers who use the data model information to understand the code that they are writing. We also have the business users who use the diagrams and the data dictionaries to understand the data so that they use it correctly.

Data Modeler is being used very extensively. We are considered power users within the community of users.

As new applications are developed, we may or may not need new licenses for erwin Data Modeler.

I have used SILVERRUN, which is a very old tool and actually has Sunset. I have also used SAP Sybase PowerDesigner. The primary reason for using PowerDesigner over erwin Data Modeler for that decision was that we were able to program the PL/SQL right into Sybase PowerDesigner. At the time, it had the capability to order the run of the PL/SQL. So the Sybase PowerDesigner would not make the changes to the database via the DDL, but it also generated the PL/SQL code that moved the data from source to target. That's a capability that erwin Data Modeler has never had. I don't know if it is on the roadmap for inclusion in the future, but I also do not see it as a requirement for erwin Data Modeler going forward because there are many ETL tools out there readily available.

I've also used IDERA. The interesting feature about IDERA that differentiates it from erwin Data Modeler is that the model repository actually separates the logical data models from the physical data models. Whereas erwin is basically the flip of a switch. It's not a true logical model, it's a logical representation of the physical data model.

I think the other thing that sets erwin Data Modeler apart is the model Mart repository, which protects a company's intellectual property within the data models and makes them available across the company so that the information is shared with anyone who has an erwin Data Modeler license. That was not available in SILVERRUN. It was also not available when I used PowerDesigner at the time. It was about 15 years ago for PowerDesigner. It is available for IDERA.

I find the setup straightforward. It is very easy to install. It took minutes.

We have seen ROI.

The reusability of some of the information within erwin Data Modeler, coupled with the capability to govern the information such as the data domains, the naming standard master file, degeneration of the DDL, every piece of automation ensures that there is consistency across and within data stores, and reduces the time to deliver the information because of the automation and governance built into the tool.

Whether or not the accuracy and speed of the solution and transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it would be a judgment call. I do think it is worth it. But of course, in this day and age where people are offshoring all of their work trying to save money, makes one consider the cost of any investment.

I think that the pricing is reasonable. It has called Concurrent licensing, where you can have a number of people share an erwin license. I think that that pricing is a little bit high, but that is a personal opinion.

The biggest lesson that I've learned is actually with a lack of data modeling. We have teams who have complained that data modeling takes too long. They would rather have developers manually code the DDL, which creates a lot of mistakes, increases the backlog, and increases not only the time to delivery but the cost to delivery. There is a lack of understanding of the agile methodology around data modeling and the incorporation of the emergent design happening in the scrum teams with the intentional design of the data architect creating a data model. Given an opportunity to follow the correct path and perform data modeling, we have seen a significant return on investment with decreases in delivery time and decreases in project cost.

I would rate erwin Data Modeler a ten out of ten. 

The use case was normally to update data model designs for transaction processing systems and data warehouse systems. Part of our group also was doing data deployment, though I personally didn't do it. The work I did was mostly for the online transaction systems and for external file designs.

I didn't use it for data sources. I used the solution for generation of code for the target in the database. Therefore, I went from the model to the database by generating the DDL code out of erwin.

We had it on-premise. There was a local database server on SQL, then we each had a client that we install on our machines.

At one of my previous jobs, we had a lot of disparate databases that people built on their PCs, which were under their desk. We were under a mandate to bring all of that into a controlled environment that our DBAs could monitor, tune, etc. Therefore, this was a big improvement. I put the data that was in whatever source into an Excel spreadsheet, reverse engineering it into a SQL file and putting in the commas, and then I could reverse engineer that SQL into a data model. That saved us a tremendous amount of time instead of building the data model from scratch.

I educated a number of my colleagues who were in data architecture and writing the DDL by hand. I showed them, "You do it this way from the model." That way, you never have to worry about introducing errors or having a disconnect between what is in the model and the database. I was able to get management support for that. We enhanced the accuracy of our data models.

I do like the whole idea of being able to identify your business rules. In my last position, I got acquainted with using it for data lineage, which is so important now with the current regulatory environment because there are so many laws or regulations that need to be adhered to. 

If you're able to show where the data came from, then you know the source. For example, I was able to use user-defined properties (UDPs) on one job where we were bringing in the data from external XML files. I would put it at the UDP level, where the data came from. On another job, we upgraded a homegrown database that didn't meet our standards, so we changed the naming standards. I put in the formally known UDPs so I could run reports, because our folks in MIS who were running the reports were more familiar with the old names than the new names. Therefore, I could run the report so they could see, "This is where you find what you used to call X, and it is now called Y." That helped. 

The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems.

Complete Compare is good for double checking your work, how your model compares with prior versions, and making sure that your model reflects the database design. At my job before my last one, every now and then the DBAs would go in and make updates to correct a production problem, and sometimes they would forget to let us know so we could update the model. Therefore, periodically, we would go in and compare the model to the database to ensure that there weren't any new indexes or changes to the sizes of certain data fields without our knowing it. However, at the last job I had, the DBAs wouldn't do anything to the database unless it came from the data architects so I didn't use that particular function as much.

If the source of the data is an L2TP system and you're bringing it into a data warehouse, erwin's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models, in terms of accuracy and speed, is excellent for keeping them in sync. We did a lot of our source to target work with Informatica. We used erwin to sometimes generate the spreadsheets that we would give our developers. This was a wonderful feature that isn't very well-known nor well-publicized by erwin. 

Previously, we were manually building these Excel spreadsheets. By using erwin, we could click on the target environment, which is the table that we wanted to populate. Then, it would automatically generate the input to the Excel spreadsheet for the source. That worked out very well.

When you do a data model, you can detect the table. However, sometimes I would find it quicker to just do a screenshot of the tables in the data model, put it in a Word document, and send it to the software designers and business users to let them see that this is how I organized the data. We could also share the information on team calls, then everybody could see it. That was quicker than trying to run reports out of erwin, because sometimes we got mixed results which took us more time than what they were worth. If you're just going in and making changes to a handful of tables, I didn't find the reporting capabilities that flexible or easy to use. 

The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work.

I don't see that it helped me that much in identifying data sources. Instead, I would have to look at something like an XML file, then organize and design it myself.

I started working with Data Modeler when I was in the transportation industry. However, that was in the nineties, when it was version 1 and less than $1,000.

I found it pretty stable. I didn't have any problems with it. 

Sometimes, when you're working with model Mart, once in a while the connection would drop. What I don't like is that if you don't consistently save, you could lose a lot of changes. That's something that I think should work more like Word. If for some reason your system goes down, there's an interruption, or you just forget or get distracted by a phone call, then you go back and something happened. You might have lost hours worth of work. That was always painful.

I have worked on databases that had as many as a thousand tables. In terms of volume and versioning, it is fine. We've used the model Mart to house versions that introduce another level of complexity to keep the versioning consistent. 

There is a big learning curve with using model Mart. Therefore, a lot of groups don't really fully utilize it the way they should. You need somebody to go in there every now and then to clean things up. We had some pretty serious standards around when you deployed it to production and how you moved it in model Mart. We would use Complete Compare there. It scaled well that way. 

In terms of the number of users, we had 20 to 30 different data architects using it. I don't know that everybody was on it full-time, all the time. I never saw a conflict where we were having trouble because too many people were using it. From that point, it was fine.

I think the team got as large as it was going to get. In fact, right now they're on a hiring freeze because of COVID-19.

Over a period of five or 10 years, the few times I've had to go all the way through to erwin, I talked to the same young lady, who is very good. She understood the problem, worked it, and would give me the solution within two phone calls. This was very good.

Prior to erwin, I had used Bachman and IEF. Bachman I liked better, but IEF was way too cumbersome. 

Bachman was acquired by another company and disappeared from the marketplace. The graphics were very pretty on Bachman. Its strongest feature was reverse engineering databases. I found erwin just as robust with its reverse engineering. 

IEF also disappeared from the marketplace, and I didn't use it very much. I didn't like it, as it was way too cumbersome. You needed a local administrator. It was really tough. It promised to generate code and database as well as supposed to be an all encompassing case tool. I just don't think it really delivered on that promise.

It could very well be that the coding of those solutions didn't keep up with the latest languages. There was a real consolidation of data modeling tools in the last 15 to 18 years. Now, you've only got erwin and maybe Embarcadero. I don't think there's anything else. erwin absorbed a lot of the other solutions but didn't integrate them very well. We were suffering when it didn't work. However, with the latest versions, I think they've overcome a lot of those problems.

Usually, the companies already had erwin in place. We had one company where the DBAs would sort of get us going.

The upgrades were complex. They required a lot of testing. About a year ago, we held off doing them because we wanted to upgrade to the latest version as well as we were in the midst of a very big system upgrade. Nobody wanted to take the time. It took one of our architects working with other internal organizations, then there were about three or four of us who tried to do the testing of the features. It was a big investment of time, and I thought that it should have been more straightforward. I think companies would be more willing to upgrade if it wasn't so painful.

The upgrade took probably two months because nobody was working on it full-time. They would work on it while they could. One of the architects ended up working late, over the weekends, and everything trying to get it ready before we could roll it out to the entire team.

For the upgrades, there were ;at least half a dozen people across three different groups. There were three or four data architects in our group, then we had two or three desktop support and infrastructure people for the server issues.

I think they used Sandhill for the initial installation.

If it's the first time, I recommend engaging a third-party integrator, like Sandhill, whom I found them very good and responsive.

We always had a problem keeping track of all the licenses. All of a sudden you might get a message that your license expired and you didn't know, and it happens at different times. At GM Finance, they engaged Sandhill to help us manage it. I was less involved because of the use of Sandhill, who was very helpful when we had trouble with our license. I remember you had to put in these long string of characters and be very careful that you didn't cut and paste it in an email, but that you generated it. It was so sensitive and really difficult until the upgrades.

if there was a serious problem, then it was usually around the licensing, where there was some glitch in the licensing. Then, we would call Sandhill who would help us out with it. That's something where we had to invoke a third-party for any technical difficulties.

I wish it wasn't so expensive. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. $3,000 is a big hit.

I think you buy a block of users because I know the company always wanted to manage the number of licenses. 

I really haven't spent a lot of time on other data modeling tools. I have heard people complain about erwin quite a bit, "Oh, we wish we had Embarcadero," or something like that. I haven't worked with those tools, so I really can't say that they're better or worse than erwin, since erwin is the only data modeling tool that I've used in the last 15 years.

There might be some effort to do some cloud work at my previous place of employment, but I wasn't on those projects. I don't think they've settled on how they're going to depict the data.

Some of the stuff in erwin Evolve, and the way in which it meshes with erwin Data Modeler, was very cool.

Sometimes, your model would get corrupted, but you could reverse engineer it and go back in, then regenerate the model by using the XML that was underlying the model. This would repair it. When I showed this to my boss, he was very impressed. He said, "Oh man, this is where we used to always have to call Sandhill." I replied, "You don't have to do that. You need to do this." That worked out pretty well.

Biggest lesson learnt: The value of understanding your data in a graphical way has been very rich in communicating to developers and testers when they recognize the relationships and the business rules. It made their lives so much easier in the capturing of the metadata and business English definitions, then generating them. Everybody on the team could understand what this data element or group of data elements represented. This is the biggest feature that I've used in my development and career.

I would rate this solution as an eight out of 10. 

We use it in order to create models, do some reverse engineering in the case of existing databases, and for comparing models, e.g., what is in the design vs reality.

It provides us a visual of the database, which helps me with the complexity of the models. We can know if someone made changes to anything, which is very important from a development perspective. It helps us maintain control of the work.

We had some data integration projects, where we needed to integrate it for about 100 databases. Doing that manually is crazy; we can't do that. With erwin, it was much easier to identify which tables and columns could be used for the integration. That means a lot in terms of time and effort as well as my image to the customer, because they can see that we are providing value in a very short time.

The solution's code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources. This accuracy affects our development time a lot. It is very easy to go into the graphical model to change something, e.g., generate scripts. It now takes minutes (less than an hour).

The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically.

I like the accuracy. It is very precise.

I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections.

erwin's automation of reusable design rules and standards is good, but it could be better.

About 30 years.

It is pretty good. I haven't had any problems with crashes, etc.

We have a consultant who is responsible for the maintenance.

The solution's scalability is good. However, there isn't a clear explanation of how to go from 10 to 20 users, which is something that customers ask us.

In my company, there are currently five data managers who use erwin.

I like their technical support. They try very hard to solve the problem.

They are not supporting old versions of some databases anymore, so I don't always have the tools that I need. I would like them to keep the support for the older versions.

The standard edition is quite straightforward to set up. It is just clicking, "Next, Next, Next." This takes less than an hour to set up.

It gets complicated when we set up the group edition. We need to start a database. Sometimes, erwin support is needed for the setup. The setup for the group edition can take two days to a week, depending on the database.

We also sell erwin to some of our customers. Usually, we create some sort of implementation steps to ensure that it will work.

We have seen ROI in terms of time, e.g., consulting time and the ability to answer customers faster. This has improved the image of the company.

The solution’s ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time from two weeks to one day or even hours. This is one of the features that I like.

The price should be lower in order to be on the same level as its competitors.

I have worked with Toad, Sparx, and the free version of Oracle Data Modeler. erwin DM's competitors are cheaper, but the look and feel of erwin is more user-friendly, professional, mature, and enterprise level.

I recommend using erwin Data Modeler. You should have a good business case to convince the finance team, as the price is high for Latin America.

I would rate this solution as nine out of 10.

My previous employer's use case was around data warehousing. We used it to house our models and data dictionaries. We didn't do anything with BPM, etc. The company that I left prior to coming to my current company had just bought erwin EDGE. Therefore, I was helping to see how we could leverage the integration between erwin Mapping Manager and erwin Data Modeler, so we could forward engineer our models and source port mappings, then mapping our data dictionary into our business definitions.

We didn't use it to capture our sources. It was more target specific. We would just model and forward engineer our targets, then we used DM to manage source targets in Excel. Only when the company first got erwin EDGE did we start to look at leveraging erwin Mapping Manager to manage source targets, but that was still a POC. 

As far as early DM source specific, we didn't do anything with that. It was always targeted. 

It improved the way we were able to manage our models. I come from a corporate background, working for some big banks. We had a team of about 10 architects who were spread out, but we were able to collaborate very well with the tool.

It was a good way to socialize the data warehouse model within our own team and to our end users. 

It helped manage some of the data dictionary stuff, which we could extract out to end users. It provided a repository of the data warehouse models, centralizing them. It also was able to manage the metadata and have the dictionary all within one place, socializing that out from our repository as well.

Typically, for an engineer designing and producing the DDL out of erwin, we will execute it into the database, then they have a target that they can start coding towards. 

• Being able to manage the domains.
• Ability to standardize our data types and some common attributes, which was pretty powerful. 
• The Bulk Editor: I could extract the metadata into Excel (or something) and be able to make some mass changes, then upload it back.

We use the macros with naming standards patterns, domains, datatypes, and some common attributes. As far as other automations, a feature of the Bulk Editor is mass updates. When it sees something is nonstandard or inaccurate, it will export the better data out. Then, I can easily see which entities and attributes are not inline or standard. I can easily make changes to what was uploaded to the Bulk Editor. When taking on a new project, it can save you about a half a day on a big project across an entire team.

The Bulk Editor needs improvement. If you had something that was a local model to your local machine, you could connect to the API, then it would write directly into the repository. However, when you have something that is on the centralized server, that functionality did not work. Then, you had to export out to a CSV and upload up to the repository. It would have been nice to be able to do the direct API without having that whole download and upload thing. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that didn't work when it was a model that sat on a centralized repository.

I have been using erwin since about 2010. I used it last about a year ago at my previous employer. My current employer does not have it.

We only had one guy who would keep up with it. Outside of the server, as far as adding and removing users and doing an upgrade which I would help with sometimes, there were typically only two people on our side maintaining it.

There are about 10 users in our organization.

There were a couple of little things that you had to remember to do. We ran into a couple of issues more than once when we did an upgrade or install. It wasn't anything major, but It was something that you really had to remember how you have to do it. I

t takes probably a few hours If you do everything correctly, then everything is ready to go.

There were two people from our side who deployed it, a DBA and myself. 

We didn't go directly through erwin to purchase the solution. We used Sandhill Consulting, who provided someone for the setup. We had used them since purchasing erwin. They used to put on workshops, tips and tricks, etc. They're pretty good.

Once you start to get into using all the features, it is definitely worth the cost.

With erwin Mapping Manager, which I have PoC'd a few times, it was something that I'd always get to produce ETL code. I have also used WhereScape for several years as well, and that type of functionality is very useful when producing ETLs from your model. It provides a lot of saving. When you're not dealing with something extremely complex, but just has a lot of repeatable type stuff, then you get a pretty standard, robust model. That's a huge saving to be able to do that with ETL code.

The ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models in terms of accuracy and speed for keeping them in sync is pretty powerful. However, I have never actually used the models as something that associates source. It is something I would be interested in trying to learn how to use and get involved with that type of feature. It would be nice to be able to have everything tied in from start to finish.

I am now working with cloud and Snowflake. Therefore, I definitely see some very good use cases and benefits for modeling the cloud with erwin. For example, there is so much more erwin can offer for doing something automated with SqlDBM. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of 10.

When I work from home, my use case for erwin is for when I get a request for a database upgrade. Usually, the request comes in with a whole bunch of tables and names so I'll go into the DM and I'll start building out what they're asking for. Once we actually get them to be able to view it and understand it, then we'll go back and forth with the developers and the requesters to make sure that it's exactly what they're looking for. We'll spend a few days making sure everything looks correct. Once that's finished, I'll send it out. 

Unfortunately, I can't do a PDF straight from erwin so I'll copy everything into Word and then save my Word as a PDF. With that PDF, I'll be able to send it off to all the stakeholders, not just the developers and the requesters, so that everybody can see it, even the ones that don't have erwin itself.

My office use case is pretty much the same, except with the office, we add in Model Mart. We have our entire network, all the databases, and everything in Model Mart and it's over 1,500 different tables, relationships, attributes, and things like that. It's a really large model. Then, we break down that model into individual subject areas and we work through those. We go back to any new requests, we'll build them in Data Modeler and we'll go back and forth with the requesters, making sure everything looks like what they're expecting it to. They'll usually just send us either a spreadsheet of names and data types and then we build from there.

erwin brings data to life. We're currently working with a requester at that moment, who provided us with a spreadsheet of their ideas of tables and attributes with the metadata associated with each. Then they provided us a rudimentary diagram with tables and keys. I was able to put it into erwin along with the metadata that they were asking for, and it really brought questions to life. The people said, "We didn't realize the relationships were going to bring in these extra keys." And they didn't realize there were a lot of extra pieces coming in as well. Once we did that, we were able to show them exactly what they were asking for and it brought much more conversation between us.

We don't use DM's modeling support for Snowflake cloud yet. I am interested in cloud technology and I just came across that support that erwin has. It made me even more interested in cloud technology. 

Its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data helps another office in my company that uses it quite a bit. 

The automatic build to the physical is a really nice feature. I like the fact that it will bring the keys down from one table to the next, from a parent to child table. Those two things make erwin a very easy to use product. 

It's a safeguard for me because I'm always concerned that somebody is free handing it and will forget a key coming from the parent. The migrating keys are a great feature. Identifying relationships, non-identifying relationships, and being visually right there to understand the differences are great features.

erwin is key to being able to visually understand whatever the customer is requesting. They'll give you words on a paper, but once they can actually view it as a picture, it really comes to life. The data comes to life to where they understand exactly what they're asking for.

I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020. It's a learning curve for me. It could be easier to use, but it's not a Windows/Microsoft type of application. It's close to it but it's also not. Once I've used it enough and learned it, then I'll know where all the pieces are.

I've been a data modeler in my office for six years so I've been using erwin for six years. My office has been using erwin since the beginning of time. I'm not exactly sure when they started using it, but the office has been around for 20 years so they've probably been using it since erwin started.

It's on our secret network and I believe they've been going back and forth quite a bit with erwin's tech teams as far as getting it to work because I think our workstations are virtual workstations and there were some issues with the licensing and the license server. I've been watching that from the peripherals but not really getting in the weeds with them. I'm not sure exactly what they're doing.

I've only had it crash on me once. I can't remember what I was doing and when or how it crashed. It was one of those inconvenient times and so I started again. I don't think an auto-save was done. That happened three weeks ago.

I use it at home every day and there are days where I've used it almost an entire eight hour day. I'm using it quite heavily right now.

The only time I've had to use erwin technical support was when I requested an extension on my trial license. They were really quick and good about it.

The initial setup was straightforward. I was able to install it at home without a problem whatsoever. Within a few seconds, I was able to figure out how to start building a table. I had no problems whatsoever. I think my colleagues who are going into work might have a little bit of a different answer because of issues with service, license keys, and what have you.

The deployment took five to ten minutes. There wasn't a lot of customization necessary. It's been a couple of months now since I've started doing it. I can see from the tab that I'm on that I need to just click on the table, click the area there, and start building tables. I've also had experience with it, so that makes it easier as well. It's intuitive.

At the office, there's quite a bit of strategy on how they needed to deploy it and how they needed to have it totally set up in the virtual world. They were upgrading from an older version.

At our office, we have two or three different people that were truly involved, but we did have one main person doing the going back and forth with erwin as far as getting help and setting it up. That took a couple of weeks, if not longer, to actually get it set up working correctly.

We bought a total of 10 licenses, although I'm not so sure. It's less than 25.

I would definitely say that it's a time saver once you learn how to use the application. It takes a little while to teach people how to use it just like with any other application, but as far as time-saving afterward, it's invaluable. As far as taking the time to truly show a person the end result, we can show them exactly what we're talking about and that's really invaluable. I'm sure the deployment would say the same thing as far as being able to build the database off of it.

The accuracy and speed in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it. At the same time, I don't do that.

It saves us a couple of hours of actually trying to build something. It's not something that my office does every day. However, when we do it, I could not imagine building tables or building a diagram from any other tools that are currently in the office. It's impossible to do it from PowerPoint or Word. 

I don't think that the pricing for my office is horrible. However, from my home, there's absolutely no way I could afford erwin on my own as far as doing my own work.

There have been discussions between my office and the actual company that I work for and trying to decide on who would actually pay the bill. I'm the person stuck in the middle saying that I can't do my work here and luckily, I've been able to get one or two extensions on my free trial license from erwin. However, I'm afraid that I won't be able to get my company to pay for it and fairly soon the trial license will end up expiring on me.

I decided to build physical only but later on that kind of bit me and so I will start building logical first and then the physical. It would be nice to be able to build out my own set of tables and maybe a Model Mart type of situation but I don't see me being able to afford a copy at home for myself. I won't be able to continue keeping a trial copy forever and until COVID is over.

When COVID started, I did start looking at home versions of other freeware because I had time to actually do some research. I found that most of the freeware wasn't really free. It was also still kind of clunky and one of the applications that I was using didn't automatically bring the keys down and for me, that was a killer right there. I would not suggest the application to anyone. From the trial copies of the other applications they use, I think that's where erwin really comes up ahead, above the other applications.

The biggest lesson I have learned from erwin is the old cliche, that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is truly erwin in itself. When a person asks for a set of tables and they actually see that diagram visually, it really assists in any meeting that you will have. It is key to any meeting you have.

I would rate Data Modeler an eight out of ten. The reason for this rating is because I did a couple of dumb attributes and it took me forever to find how to truly delete it. It was a parent-child relationship and I deleted the parent and did not answer the question from the next box that popped up correctly. So I had an attribute hanging out in a table and it took me forever to find the dangling relationships. Because of that, I knocked it down a rating because it did take me a long time to find that.

I'm quite happy with the modeling tool. It does just about everything that I need it to do. I can't really think of what it doesn't do that I would need other than the PDF. I'm really happy with it.

I am responsible for both a combination of documenting our existing data models and using erwin Data Modeler as a primary visual design tool to design and document data models that we implement for our production services.

My primary role is to document our databases using erwin to work with people and ensure that there is logically referential integrity from the perspective of the data models. I also generate the data definition language (DDL) changes necessary to maintain our data models and databases up to our client requirements in terms of their data, analytics, and whatever data manipulation that they want to do. I use erwin a lot.

It is either installed locally or accessed through a server, depending on where I have been. I have had either a single application license or pooled license that I would acquire when I open up erwin from a server.

We get data from many different sources where I work. We have many clients. The data is all conceptually related. There are primary subject area domains common across most of our clients. However, the physical sources of the data, or how the data is defined and organized, often vary significantly from client to client. Therefore, data modeling tools like erwin provide us with the ability to create a visual construct from a subject area perspective of the data. We then use that as a source to normalize the data conceptually and standardized concepts that are documented or defined differently across our sources. Once we get the data, we can then treat the data that has been managed somewhat disparately from a common conceptual framework, which is quite important.

At the moment, for what I'm doing, the interface to the physical database is really critical. erwin generally is good for databases. It is comfortable in generating a variety of versions of data models into DDL formats. That works fine.

What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes.

Its visualization is the most valuable feature. The ability to make global changes throughout the data model. Data models are reasonably large: They are hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of tables and attributes. With any data model, there are many attributes that are common from a naming perspective and a data type perspective. It is possible with erwin to make global changes across all of the tables, columns, or attributes, whether you are doing it logically or physically. Also, we use it to set naming standards, then attempt to enforce naming standards and changes in naming from between the logical version of the data models and the physical versions of the data models, which is very advantageous. It also provides the ability to document primary/foreign key relationships and standardize them along with being able to review conceptually the data model names and data types, then visualize that across fairly large data models.

The solution’s visual data models for helping to overcome data source complexity and enabling understanding and collaboration around maintenance and usage is very important because you can create or define document subject areas within enterprise data models. You can create smaller subsets to be able to document those visually, assess the integrity, and review the integrity of the data models with the primary clients or the users of the data. It can also be used to establish communications that are logically and conceptually correct from a business expert perspective along with maintaining the physical and logical integrity of the data from a data management perspective. 

We are not using erwin's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models in terms of accuracy and speed for keeping them in sync to the fullest extent. Part of it is related to the sources of the data and databases that we are now working with and the ability of erwin to interface with those database platforms. There are some issues right now. Historically, erwin worked relatively well with major relational databases, like Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, and Sybase. Now, we are migrating our platforms to the big data platforms: Hadoop, Hive, and HBase. It is only the more recent versions of erwin that have the ability to interface successfully with the big data platforms. One of the issues that we have right now is that we haven't been able to upgrade the version that we currently have of erwin, which doesn't do a very good job of interfacing with our Hive and Hadoop environments. I believe the 2020 version is more successful, but I haven't been able to test that. 

Much of what I do is documenting what we have. I am trying to document our primary data sources and databases in erwin so we have a common platform where we can visually discuss and make changes to the database. In the past couple of years, erwin has kind of supported importing or reverse engineering data models from Hive into erwin, but not necessarily exporting data models or forward generating the erwin-documented data models into Hive or Hadoop (based on my experience). I think the newest versions are better adapted to do that. It is an area of concern and a bit of frustration on my part at this time. I wish I had the latest version of erwin, either the 2020 R1 or R2 version, to see if I could be more successful in importing and exporting data models between erwin and Hive.

erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge. 

There are other characteristics of erwin, as far as interfacing directly with the databases, that we don't do. Historically, while erwin has existed, the problem is the people that I work with and who have done most of the data management and database creation are engineers. Very few of them have any understanding of data modeling tools and don't work conceptually from that perspective. They know how to write DDL syntax for whether it's SQL Server, Oracle, or Sybase, but they don't have much experience using a data modeling tool like erwin. They don't trust erwin nor would they trust any of its competitors. I trust erwin a lot more than our engineers do. The most that they trust the solution to do is to document and be able to see characteristics of the database, which are useful in terms of discussing the database from a conceptual perspective and with clients, rather than directly engineering the database via erwin. 

erwin is more of a tool to document what exists, what potentially will exist, and create code that engineers can then harvest and manage/manipulate to their satisfaction. They can then use it to make changes directly to our databases. Currently, when the primary focus is on Hive databases or Hadoop environment, where there is no direct engineering at this point between erwin and those databases, any direct or indirect engineering at the moment is still with our Oracle Database.

I have been using the solution on and off for 20 to 30 years.

It is pretty stable. Personally, I haven't run into any real glitches or problems with the output, the ability to import data when it does work correctly, the export/creation of DDL, or generation of reports.

We are trying to upgrade. This has been going on now for several months. We're trying to upgrade to the 2020 version. Originally, it was 2020 R1, but I think at this point people are talking about the 2020 R2 version. Now, I'm not part of our direct communications with erwin in regards to Data Modeler, but there are some issues that erwin is currently working on that are issues for my company. This have prevented us from upgrading immediately to the 2020 version.

This gets down to how you do your data modeling. If you do your data modeling in a conceptually correct manner, scaling isn't an issue. If you don't do your data modeling very well, then you are creating unnecessary complexities. Things can get a bit awkward. This isn't an erwin issue, but more a consequence of who is using the product.

In the area that I'm working right now, I'm the only user. Within the company, there are other people and areas using the solution probably far more intimately in regards to their databases. I really don't know the number of licenses out there.

The problem is that our issues are related to interfacing erwin Data Modeler with the Hadoop Hive environments. The issues have always been either what I was trying to do was not fully supported by our version of erwin Data Modeler. People have certainly tried to help, but there's only so much that they could tell me. So, it's been difficult. I am hoping that I can get back to people with some better answers once the newest version of erwin is available to us.

The people who were previously responsible for the database development were very good engineers who knew how to write SQL. They could program anything themselves that they wanted to program. However, I really don't think that they really understood data modeling as such. They just wrote the code. Our code and models are still developing and not necessarily conformed to good data modeling practices. 

In the past, I was involved in the initial setup. In traditional environments, it sets up pretty easily. In my current environment, where I'm trying to get it as intimately integrated with our big data platforms as possible, I'm finding it quite frustrating. However, I'm using an older version and think that is probably a significant part of the problem.

In other environments where I've worked, the solution’s ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. In this environment, erwin is not very tightly integrated into the development cycle. It is used more for documentation purposes at this point and for creating a nascent code which down the road gets potentially implemented. While it's not used that way at my current company, I think it would be better if it were, but there is a culture here that probably will prevent that from ever occurring.

An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool.

There is another tool now that people are using. It is not really a data modeling tool. It is more of a data model visualization tool, and that's SchemaSpy. We don't do data modeling with that. You get a visualization of the existing physical database. But that's where the engineers live, and that's what they think is great. This is a cultural, conceptual, understanding issue due to a lack of understanding and appreciation of what good data modeling tools do that I can't see changing based on the current corporate organization. 

It is the only meaningful way to do any data modeling. It is impossible to conceptualize and document complex data environments and the integration between different data subject areas. You can write all the code or DDL you want, but it's absolutely impossible to maintain any sort of conceptual or logical integrity across a large complex enterprise environment without using a tool like erwin. 

You want to look at what you are trying to accomplish with erwin before implementing it.

• Does the product have the ability to support or accomplish that?
• Based on the technologies that you have decided you want to use to manage your data, how intimately does it integrate with those technologies? 

From my perspective of using the traditional relational databases, I think erwin probably works pretty well. 

For the newer database technologies, such as the Hadoop environment databases, it's not clear to me how successful erwin is. However, I'm not talking from the perspective of somebody who has been aggressively using the latest version. I don't have access to it, so I'm afraid my concerns or issues may not be valid at this point. I will find out when we finally implement the latest erwin version.

I would give the solution a seven or eight (out of 10).

We have a couple of really important use cases for erwin. One of them is that we automate the pull of metadata from the repository itself, so that we have all the model metadata that we can then put into a centralized hub that we can access with other applications. Another reason we pull all the metadata out of the model is to run it through our model validation application, which telsl us if this model is healthy or not and if it meets our standards or not.

The other use case that's really important is managing the abbreviations file that erwin uses to convert logical terms into physical terms. The way that you manage it today within erwin is very manual and you'll go from a spreadsheet, make changes, and upload, et cetera-- but we've created an API application where if we take the main standard file and keep it in the database, make the changes in the database, then we have an application that goes out into the Mart file, deletes the glossary, replaces it with the table from the database. It's all automated at the push of a button. It's things that would take us days to make changes in the standard files and do updates in eight different files.

Data warehousing is the best example of how this product can make a huge difference because it's an integration of a lot of different source systems. You have to be able to visualize how you are going to make the information from sources A, B, and C merge together. It makes it very important.

The ability to automatically generate DDL and have the to do it in different flavors (Teradata DDL or Oracle, et cetera), and to be able to fine-tune the forward engineering file so that it comes out the way your shop likes to see the DDL done is critical. It's soup to nuts from the design all the way to implementation. It's really critical.

We find that its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. The ability to create one model in your design phase and then have it generate DDL code for Oracle or Teradata, or whichever environment you need is really nice. It's not only nice but it also saves man-hours of time. You would have to take your design and just type in manually. It has to take days off out of the work.

The code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources especially because you can tweak it.

Development time is another critical issue. If you had to tweak every single piece of code that comes off the line because there's only a one-size-fits-all solution, then the problem would not be worth anywhere near as much as it is. It has the ability to create a customized forward engineering code that you can use to generate your code for your shop so that it always comes out the way you want it.

The product itself is fantastic and it's about the only way to get an enterprise view of the data that you're designing. It's a design tool, obviously. Once you add the API to that where you can automate things, you can make bulk changes. You can integrate your data from erwin into another in-house application that doesn't have access to the data because the erwin data is encrypted. It's been quite a boon to us because we're very heavy into automation, to have the ability to create these ad hoc programs, to get at the data, and make changes on the fly. It's been a wonderful tool.

A data modeling case tool is a key element if you are a data-centric team. There is no way around it. It's a communication tool. It's a way of looking at data and seeing visually how things fit together, what is not going to fit together. You have a way of talking about the design that gets you off of that piece of paper, where people are sitting down and they're saying, "Well, I need this field and I need that field and we need the other field." It just brings it up and makes it visible, which is critical.

I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk.

We have a really good relationship with erwin and whenever we come across something and we contact the product developers and the contacts that we have, they immediately put fixes in, or they roll it into the next product. They're very responsive. I really don't have any complaints.

It's a wonderful product and a great company.

I've been using erwin since version 3.0 in the '80s.

It's very stable. It's very mature.

We have about 70 licenses and we have about 70 people using the product full time. I've worked in shops where there were two or three to a dozen. Besides these 70, we also have other parts of the world, shops that have it. It scales right up. I have not worked in a shop where it was either too small or too large.

We have full-time data modelers. We have architects. We don't make a distinction between the data architect and the data modeler. The data architect is designing the enterprise-level view of data and how we use it as a business and then modelers work on specific projects. They'll take this enterprise view and they'll create a project model for whatever it is that we're rolling out.

We've got an architecture person, a modeler person, and we also have some developers who do some smaller database modeling when they had to get out something that's just used in-house. It's not used downstream by the end-user. We have the use of a portal product. Everybody at the company has access to the web portal product. They can go in and see what data has been designed and do impact analysis.

The business analyst will look at it in the web portal to see what the downstream impact would be for them to change a particular name that the company uses for something. They check what the downstream and upstream implications are. Then, the developers use our DI tools for creating the mapping from the source system to the target system. Our data stewards use the tool for the business glossary and for how we define things. Every part of the company that deals with data uses eriwn.

Customer service is fantastic. I know a lot of the guys by first name that work in tech support.

When we have a problem, typically we're broke because we have people here on staff who answer most of the questions and most of the problems. If we have a problem, it's a big problem. They put us straight through and they handle us right away.

I've used four different data modeling tools. Every modeling tool has its strong point but there's none of them out there that are as robust to me as erwin. If I have to choose one tool, it's going to be erwin, especially since I've gotten into the API and I know how to use it. Some of the things the other tools add in terms of being able to manipulate the underlying metadata, erwin has with that API. I won't say they now have it. They've had it since day one, but I've just picked it up in the last year or so.

The setup gets more complex every time. Especially with 2019, they completely changed the interface and that was another learning curve. But for the most part, if you know data modeling, you can find the logical task that you want to do within the physical form and menus of the product. I didn't find the learning curve so bad because I was already a data modeler.

I started the upgrade process today, as a matter of fact. We just got the software installed on a Mart, and I'm going through the new features. I'll play with it for a week. Then we'll get other testers to actually do some formal testing for a week. And then we'll put in our change because we're a large shop. It's around a month cycle to get an upgrade in place. That's if there are no problems. If we come across something that tells us that we can't use this product until this is changed or fixed then it's a stop. For the most part, a happy path, takes around a month in a large shop like ours.

As far as the upgrade itself on dev, it took maybe an hour to upgrade the Mart. And it took me maybe an hour to upgrade the desktops that we use for testing.

We've been doing upgrades for years. I'm been involved in it with multiple companies and it's what I do here. We have a cycle, a strategy, and a checklist that we go through for every upgrade.

The first thing we do is we have a development system. We have virtual machines that we set up, so it's not on anybody's particular desktop. We upgrade the product and then one person will go through and I'll look at the new features and I'll see, number one, if we need the new features. Number two, if there is anything in these features that will break what we're doing today. Those are the first things I look at. If we pass those first two tests, then I start looking at the features and check what we are going to have and what it is going to involve in terms of training the user. We check how it is going to impact the modeler that's actually down in the trenches.

I've got to do the training materials and then the next thing is we have a warranty period. We have a group that pushes the software to the desktop. We have a special day that we roll it out. And then we have a warranty period where we set a virtual call that anybody could sit in if they have a problem. We have a virtual call so that if anybody, when they come in on Monday morning, can't get into the product, or if they're having any problems with that at all, we're right there to answer their questions. We allow for that for the first week. After that, we turn everybody loose. Of course, it doesn't account for the physical part of backing up the database, doing the install, validating over the weekend, and all that stuff. It's just the standard software upgrade stuff.

We implement in-house, but always have access to a World-Class vendor.

I wouldn't know how to measure ROI. I can only say that the alternative is spreadsheets, typing, visually inspecting things, never being able to integrate, never being able to communicate. I can't give an ROI, but I can say that I wouldn't want to work in a shop that didn't have a data modeling data tool.

erwin's my first love. I know that I have been using it long enough that I am under the covers and I know it backward and forwards. It's the one I prefer.

I don't deal with pricing or licensing here. I know that you can get a per-seat license. You can get concurrent licenses. To me, if you're a full-time modeler, you need a per-seat license. If you're a developer or a data steward, you use it a couple of times a day, maybe a couple of times a week, you can have concurrent licenses so that a group of five people will share one license. If someone's using it you can't, but if it's free then you can go ahead and use it, or you can lock it, or whatever. There are different ways of licensing it.

The one thing that having a CASE tool does is it takes the drudge away from modeling. You get to actually think of what you're doing. You think about the solution and not how you are going to keep track of what you're doing. It frees you from a lot of mechanical things that are part of keeping track of data modeling, and it allows you to do the thinking part.

There's not a lot of documentation on the API. You're pretty much going to have to teach yourself. If you have a specific problem where you've gotten to a certain point, you can always touch base with the guys at erwin and they will help you to get little snippets of code. But if you're doing things like we have, which is to write a full-blown application to extract the data or to make changes to the model, you're pretty much going to have to learn it on your own. That's just the one drawback of the API but if you're a programmer and you want to DM like me, it's a lot of fun.

It's a challenge but it's very rewarding to be able to automate stuff that people are doing manually and to be able to hand them a solution.

From one out of ten, I'd give erwin a 9.99. Everything has flaws. Everybody's got these little quirks like I mentioned about the ability to make changes that you shouldn't make. But as far as the product itself, I love it. It's right up there with a 10.