erwin Evolve Reviews

I am consulting, providing architecture and data management consulting to my clients. I'm a partner of the erwin data management and data modeling product.

Our customers are small or medium enterprise companies.

It's a customizable tool that allows you to do a lot of architectural modeling for customers. You can use different kinds of diagrams to represent the architecture setting.

To a certain extent it's too easy to customize. If it had fewer features to model all kinds of architecture, it would be less complicated. Today's world values agile architecture, which focuses on a few different viewpoints or views of architecture work, like the business capability for example. If a portal can focus on this and have an easy user interface for the end-user, that would be better.

In the future, I would like to see integration with Archimate from The Open Group so that they can build business capability maps easily.

I have been representing erwin and selling this product for two years, and I went through their presale certificate test. I am not a user. I am a presale representative and I demonstrate the product.

The solution is stable because it's a product of many years of history.

The scalability is quite good, and it's normally given from the support team in India. 

The implementation process is too complicated.

I think erwin is quite expensive. I have difficulty selling the portal, in fact.

I have been using ArchiMate for a while. That's an open source, free architecture tool. It's quite simple. It's good enough for medium or small enterprises.

I would rate this solution 6 out of 10. 

Evolve is good for a big enterprise. If you have a lot of tools like governing tools and the architectural policy and rules that are understood by your teams, then it will be a good product for a big enterprise.

We were trying to evaluate and compare it with other architecture tools. 

One of my colleagues, a servicing data architect, was trying to create a use case for one of his more recent projects, where he services an auto loan. I was trying to create a process around when some of the dealers sell an automobile, procure an automobile, and finance the automobile, then sell the automobile and get their money.

If we could have gotten it to work, I think it would have really been useful. The software architects felt that what they did already linked to it because it had the data modeling portion. When they did their technical specs, they used Evolve to drive out their technical specs. They would give us their overall technology/technical specifications to then model the data, but we were very frustrated because of the way the data was presented. 

At a detailed level, the software architects would say how the data element should look, what characters it should have along with the naming convention, and how long it should be. We would definitely challenge them on that because we felt that this was our job to do. In some cases, they would throw everything in one table, and we would say, "No, that's not the way we're going to do this because we were doing things in third normal form for our operational databases." 

We reserve the right to change the design, so a lot of the software architects would have to say, "These are just for illustration only. The final data design will be done by the data architect," since that document was the one that the QA testers would use. There was always this problem with them having to update their spec when we made changes. We thought with erwin Evolve we could get something that was more robust from a data point of view.

I really liked that it mapped out processes and was able to attach the data model to the appropriate process. You could map out the process, then when you got down to a specific couple of data elements, you could attach the table in the database that supported that process. You could connect it with erwin Data Modeler for that.

The integration capability with erwin Data Modeler was easy and great.

As we were trying to evaluate erwin Evolve, it was so rich in functionality that we'd get lost in the details. We didn't know where to start. After, we did get started, then we would break away and take on our daily activities. However, when we went back to go look at the solution, we couldn't remember, "How did I get here? What did I do?" Unfortunately, because it took us so long and we were having so much trouble, we couldn't do a complete evaluation to make it into our budget cycle.

It could have had a more streamlined navigation. It seemed that when you went to the explorer panel, there were just so many different ways of doing the work that I could not remember, "How did I do this? How did I get to that point in that model to get back to it?" If I wanted to build a new one, where do I start? It just seemed like there was such a smorgasbord of ways of doing it that it was just overwhelming.

If there is a change to the data model, then it's not automatically reflected in erwin Evolve. You have to go back and reattach it. That could be an issue in a database which has frequent changes. If erwin could find a way to simplify the navigation of getting into the meat of what you want to do, that would help a lot.

We use erwin Data Modeler most of the time. You could have a combo right there, where you see your process and the data right there. I thought that was pretty cool, but navigating to get to that point is what I found too cumbersome.

The integration capability is limited in that if you subsequently make a change in erwin Data Modeler to a table or data element, then it's not automatically reflected in erwin Evolve. This means that you would have to put in a task for erwin Data Modeler that every time they updated the data model to see if it is attached to erwin Evolve. It looked like a manual check to see, "Do I have to reattach that data model to that process because I've made a change?"

They could make it simpler for people to get into the tool and learn the tool, because it just seemed like the learning curve would be very steep.

My previous company, GM Financial, reviewed it last year for potential use. The evaluation was around late Summer, lasting over a month.

I found it to be stable.

I didn't see a problem with it being scalable.

We were a team of about three consistently using it at a time. If we could have gotten it deployed, we were a department of maybe 20 to 30 data architects. Of that, probably our operational architects would have used it first, and that would have been about eight or 10 people. Then, we would have roll it out to the others because we were organized into operational architects, data warehouse architects, and data vault architects. We saw that the operations folks probably would have been the first in line to work with it.

The technical support was always very responsive. It was just the tool itself that we just found too difficult to work with for our use.

The young lady who was our pre-sales consultant was very good. She would help us and answer all our questions. We had the sales executive, then there was also a woman who had the more technical hands-on. We asked her, "Could you please... " and then she made some adjustments for us to sort of make it easier, but we still were awfully slow at being able to get it to work. 

Our software architects had a different tool that they were using. We were hoping to show that Evolve was more robust and see if we couldn't encourage them to use our tool rather than theirs.

The initial setup was not a big deal, I don't remember it being terribly painful. They sent us links which we accessed, then we were in the tool. It was pretty simple.

One of the guys who was working with me, because I was sort of leading the effort with three of us trying to test it, already had a pretty significant library of Excel and Visio diagrams. He said, "I'm not seeing that this is buying me any advantage, because I already have this using Visio, etc." Of course, we kept saying, "Well, we still want to...," but he couldn't see the value of spending the money and extra time trying to test this solution, especially since it was so hard to work with it.

We didn't work on it constantly, because we have our typical job duties. We would go in and out, at least that's what I did. My colleague spent more time with it than I did. Then, one of the guys just got too busy with his project work and didn't do anything at all, which was a little frustrating to me. I went into it sporadically, a couple times a week, to try and spend an hour or two. My manager did the same thing. She tried, when I explained to her, "Here's what I'm coming up against. I just don't know how to get around this."

We set up several calls with the folks at erwin where she would demonstrate how we do it. They created a couple of templates for us to get started so we could just go in and try it. However, we felt like this solution would take a lot of setting up and help from erwin before we could really make use of it.

We had a template in which we looked at the different architecture tools. We had some criteria that we said we wanted from a data architecture point of view, and this was the first tool that we had a chance to get our hands on other than the one that our software solutions architects were already using.

For what it says it can do, it does a good job, but using it is too difficult. When the young lady demonstrated it, we thought, "Oh, this is great." Then, when we went to go use it, and thought, "Oh, my God, it was just too difficult."

Biggest lesson learnt: The ability to really do a function framework and integrate the data associated with the function.

I would rate it as a four out of 10. If you're going to break it out by its functionality, I would give it a seven or eight, but then I would put the ease of use very low. We didn't move forward with it. We couldn't demonstrate it to our senior leadership to say, "Look what this tool can do." We never got good enough at it.

We do a lot of system interface analysis. We have about 40 systems that we rolled up and manage at the CIO level, in the office where I work. We do system analysis: system coordination, systems that are being retired, systems that are merging together, systems that are consuming other capabilities resulting in an older system being shut down. We organize, manage, and administer the funding that flows to those 40 different systems. We use the tool to model and analyze the decisions we make about those 40 systems. Those kinds of decisions are helped with the analysis we do and the modeling that we do.

We also have an associated group that works on the workflow process side. I helped them convert a lot of their old Visio work to erwin EA. That took a lot of man-hours.

We use it as a hosted solution. erwin hosts the servers that provide the product.

With Visio, you simply get a picture, a diagram. It doesn't have any intelligence behind it and you can't really do any collaboration. The collaboration that we do use with erwin EA is like a check-in/check-out-type of functionality where, if I'm working on a diagram, my colleague can only see the diagram but he can't change it. He's locked out while I'm working on it.

Because work is in a single, hosted location, everyone is hitting the same image. That's helped us a lot in being able to share work and exchange ideas and thoughts. We can make changes and still have it all in one central repository. That's helped us a lot because we're a geographically distributed group of people.

Before erwin, we would have had to send giant files back and forth. We had to send PDFs and printed copies of things. To work in Visio you really have to exchange files: You update a file, send it to a person, have them look at it, mark it up, scan it, and PDF it back to you. It was not very good.

For me, the most valuable features are the system analytics and system capabilities, the modeling, and being able to diagram-out system interfaces.

And in equal measure, on the process side, the workflow side gives us the ability to configure a group of workflow models and drill down into supporting documentation. And on that side of the business, they also use erwin Evolve a lot, the web deployment publishing capability. They're very heavily dependent on that. I like that as well, but I'm not nearly as dependent on it. Our audience just doesn't consume the output in that way very much. But I think it's a fantastic way to publish what you do in the tool.

Its flexibility and scalability to support all stakeholders in making informed decisions are powerful capabilities. I can send images in the PDF form, along with the relationships and the associations that are a very important part of what we do. It can show what is affected and what is impacted by a certain change in one area of the system architecture or enterprise architecture. I can very quickly draw those issues and topics to the fore.

Our client likes to see things on PowerPoint slides, so we often have to publish things out to an image, and put that in a PowerPoint. erwin EA has that functionality.

I've tried to socialize and evangelize the Evolve web deployment, so that our client would understand how easily they could interface with it. But given the defense-related and government-related environment that we're in, that isn't always something that they take advantage of.

Also, the fact that admin tasks are performed by desktop applications has been done fairly well in the solution. I'm able to turn people on and off within it. We've had people come and go from our environment. I'm able to configure them, set them up, get them using it, and get them on their feet fairly easily.

The solution's integration capabilities with other tools in our system has not been all that well done. We have people who use ARIS, who use System Architect and, of course, Visio. erwin has very limited ways to import and export from those kinds of tools. It's not a very easy thing to do. It hasn't blocked anything that we've tried to accomplish, but I can tell you that we are about to begin discussions with the larger defense-functional areas about coming to a common tool. A lot of people use the System Architect already. Deployment of that seems to be more widely accepted. They pay a lot of attention to industry reviews. erwin is in the lower-left quadrant, as being a niche player, although I don't think of erwin as a niche player. But it isn't easy to use erwin EA to interact with other tools, in my experience.

In addition, a little feature that would be helpful to me, although it is incredibly down-in-the-weeds, tool-specific, would be the ability to more easily copy the style of one object to another object of the same type. Right now, there's a way of doing that, but to me it's more complicated than it should be. And it's more complicated than other tools I have used. If I have a system object, I would like to be able to configure it in bold print and specify the size and colors, etc. And I would like to copy that same style to any other system objects so that they look the same. There is just not an easy way to do that in erwin. I brought it up with erwin early on but I don't know where they went with it. They showed me how to do it and the way it currently works but it just seemed so much more difficult than a simple couple of clicks: a "Copy Style" type of thing.

I've been using it for just about three years.

It's a very stable product in terms of its performance. There are little design elements that I should list for them as suggestions at some point. But once we got it stabilized and learned the tricks of the trade and how to use it properly, there were no problems with stability.

It has easily scaled to what we want. If you buy a license, you get full access. You can have as many users as you wish. I have no issues or concerns with scalability.

In terms of support, I couldn't be happier with Grace, erwin's support rep who provides us with fantastic support. We had great support from their field consultant, Brian Bush, as well. He was a superstar getting us all trained and he's been very helpful to me over the three years when I've needed some help on certain ideas.

When the surveys come out, I give Grace five stars. She's been very good, and so is Brian.

That's their standard tech support. It was nothing that we had to pay anything for. I got my questions answered when stuck or lost or there something that I didn't know how to get around. 

I give the support five out of five stars. They've been really helpful.

We used ProVision. We switched to erwin because The Department of Defense wanted us to switch to it. They wanted something with better support of The Department of Defense architecture framework. ProVision did not have that. Erwin has very capable and validated support of the DoDAF.

We had a consultant who did the setup for us. It was completely on their shoulders to get us up and configured. We simply have a desktop tool, a remote access link, that gets us to the server. We log on and we're off and running. It's been working very well. It wasn't complicated at all because I didn't have to get involved with the installation and the setup at the server-side. We pay a fee for that service so we don't have to have anyone on our side who knows all about the server setup.

Deployment, including training, took a week. We trained in about four days and then went back to our workstations and off we went.

The strategy was to have our groups, one in DC, one in West Virginia, and the one where I work in Columbus, Ohio be able to work collectively and collaboratively. That's what we are able to do. That was one of the big criteria.

The cost is something like $15,000, per license. But I haven't looked at those numbers in three years. It was over $100,000 to initially set everything up and get it all configured.

In addition to the standard fees there's the hosting cost. That's something like $1,000 a month.

We tried many options. We had a whole project of analysis of different tools and Erwin checked all the boxes. We looked at something called In2itive. That and System Architect were among top alternatives. We just found erwin to be the most suitable. It won out in several ways, but we thought that the web deployment — the Evolve capability — also looked really strong. We felt that worked well.

Every one of these solutions has an edge or a boundary to its capabilities. There are little things, quirks, that I would like to see erwin do differently. But every one of these tools has something that people either embrace or wish was easier to do. None of them is a dream to use. You have to know what you're doing and be able to get around the limitations.

Start with the basics and get a fundamental understanding of how the suite is configured. There is a modeling suite, an object analysis suite — the object window — and the analytical tools.

I love the web deployment, the Evolve capability. That is really nicely done. The ability to collaborate across geographically distributed installations seems to be working well for us. I wish it had more API-type interface exchanges with other tools that made it much easier to transfer things to and from something like System Architect, and not to have to go through a lot of man-hours to recreate what we needed to recreate. But otherwise, it has done the job for us and continues to do so.

We have five users, with three of them being power users. And for the maintenance and administration of the tool, it's me and another gentleman in West Virginia who mostly deal with things like that. We don't have any plans to extend usage beyond those people. If anything goes wacky on the server, we just get erwin people involved.

I give it a seven out of 10 because there are that I'd love to see it do more easily.

I've primarily used the solution for conceptual logical modeling.

The ability to share and collaborate on the solution is its most valuable feature.

The solution needs to focus on allowing for more integrations.

The solution is stable.

We've had no issues surrounding the scalability of the solution. We have about eight users on it right now. We don't plan to increase usage at this time.

Technical support is good.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

We had an integrator handle the initial setup.

We did not evaluate other products. We just like erwin, so we decided to go with it.

We are currently considering the public cloud deployment model using AWS.

It's a good product. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is as data modeling tool. 

Enterprise Architecture improved our organization by giving clarity over the data that is available.

I would like to see an improvement in the output of the solution.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is good, but so far we haven't used the shared version. We use the single stand-alone version. We have only three users, and they are all data architects. We don't use any other staff for maintenance. We also don't plan to increase our usage soon.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup was really straightforward and the deployment was done within one day. 

My advice to others would be to have this solution on your shortlist if you are looking for a data modeling tool. I will rate it an eight out of ten. I would like to some additional features, like data lineage, included in the next release to make it a ten out of ten. 

Our primary use case is to develop industry models to support our consulting business.

This solution helped to jump start our EA (Enterprise architecture) and BPM practices.

The most valuable features for us are impact analysis, where I can easily visualize the impact of change.

I feel that the UML drawing capability needs to be improved. 

EA Agile only support ArchiMate and BPMN drawing. It does not support UML notation and can only import UML drawing prepared in other platform as graph object. It'll be much better if it can suppory natively all UML notation and standard.

Data modeling for data warehousing solutions, including forward engineering and reverse engineering for OLTP and dimensional models.

Creating and publishing DW models.

Forward and reverse engineering.

Business process modelling. 

• Overall model usability
• Model formatting and layout
• Logical model creation
• Physical model creation
• Forward-engineering/DDL creation
• Standards creation and reuse
• Model and database comparison tools
• Metadata interchange with other tools
• Support for a broad range of data sources from relational to big data to the Cloud.

The ERwin tool helped to reduce the rate of design and deployment errors and
increased the ease of validation. It also assists our customers in deploying our large data models/semantic models.

There might be improvement required to better support some of the MPP databases for non-relational data structures and NoSQL databases.

More than five years.

Did not encounter any issues.

No issues.

No issues.

Customer Service:

Very good.

Technical Support:

Excellent.

No.

The ERwin setup is very simple.

The implementation was done in-house.

ERwin setup is very simple and straight.