Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Reviews

Initially, I used the temporary license for capturing some initial requirements on a new project restricting my use to the Desktop Edition. This worked very well and was intuitively easy to use and produced some nice reports.

We have a long way to go on the new project and we are resource limited. The learning curve might be substantial for what I'm up against. I'm point lead on integrating and using this tool in the new project and supporting the other team members plus our management lead.

I've read about the product a lot, but very little experience outside of requirements capture.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

After reading about the differences in the Editions, I determined that we really need the Systems Engineering Edition to handle project versions and use UML for more than just software, plus auditing, and requirements tracing, etc.

We are adding more requirements to the project as time goes by. I've added a number of Use Cases, but this is not mature enough to do any project estimation (Yet). I have added some packages that support project life cycle and project roadmap. I'm going to next add tasks related to implementation of the requirements as an initial way of getting the PM side of things with a Gantt chart that makes sense. The tutorials are a little thin for doing this, and I could find no examples that were provided for ideas. There is just so little documentation on the PM side of things, but Sparx could address that deficiency by providing various scenarios along with examples just a thought.  Also, that company is using old servers that are about to be replaced mid-summer, so I cannot use their equipment to setup a database backed project. However, I have installed MySQL on my local machine and have set it up for use with the project I'm working on for them. I've been thinking about using Amazon AWS to setup a cloud based solution for them, but don't have the time for this right now.

Modelling and project-actual-state document generation. It is, as always, the most critical need of every project. Due to the presenting concept and impact analysis, this is a good tool.

My organization didn’t manage to take advantage. It needs a ‘critical mass’ of users and understanding to generate benefit, but here we failed.

There is some room for improvement in the presentation and graphics. I know the power of Sparx EA is describing ideas and modelling but facilitating presentation of models need some ergonomic improvements.

I've been using it for four years.

We had no issues with the deployment.

There were no issues with the stability.

We had no issues scaling it for our needs.

We didn’t have any cases to call for support, but we enjoyed the activities being performed and invited to – webinars and educational videos.

There were some applications being used for business process and system documentation – every department with its own. Slowly, the need for a more powerful tool became obvious, and at the time, one of the requirements put on the table was to unite different departments documenting efforts. After some evaluation, we came to the conclusion – in the IT and telecommunications areas, that usual written documents concerning systems and their design, start to become outdated at the moment of being published. Supporting models that can somehow automatically generate documentation was the real thing. Besides the impact analysis from models appear to be natural activity and the result is actual at the moment of generation. According to us, Sparx EA was ideal for this need.

The setup topology was - central repository, shared keys, version control system, domain controlled users.

A vendor performed the initial deployment. An instructor from Sparx introduced us to the product capabilities. They performed the deployment and tuning of the common storage and wrote the client installation script. they then supplied it to the infrastructure administrators and provided instructions.

Return of Investment is hard to evaluate. We expected the supported systems to achieve a reduction in time for analysis and documentation and change due to a better understanding and reduced risk. The calculation in m/h are not performed due to coinciding structural changes and loss of focus on ‘Sparx project’.

Enterprise – this is most suitable licensing scheme for medium to large companies.

It's a great product, but it needs intelligent users. This appears to be its weakness so it is absolutely obligatory to invest some time in education. Modelling, UML, BPMN, and SysML require an abstract way of thinking. It is not achieved on fly. To keep the team of keen contributors – they are those who involve the rest.

• Support for UML diagrams – use cases and behavioral model
• Logical models
• Excellent documentation templates, like what you see is what you get

Team collaboration. It’s like the Microsoft TFS equivalent for architecture.

It has everything spanning from project management to reverse engineering code to test cycle management, and I believe you can link them all together. Its side effect is the complexity of getting it all together in this one tool. 

I would probably separate the testing, PM and code reverse engineering features as an add-on feature rather as part of one tool.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

We have had no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

I really don’t have a basis for comparison with any other product like I-Server or Abacus Evolution. For what Sparx EA can offer, it’s the best tool that we had.

• Easy drag and drop
• Reuse the old copy
• Quick changes with minimal efforts
• Anyone can work on the same file
• File is small in size.

Large diagrams for hardware infrastructure, HA environments, Integrated Solution view, etc all help different teams to understand the scope of projects.

Should be on the cloud so that its flexible for making changes and managing different versions. Anyone from a team can work on a copy with project shared user for quick delivery, but there are license limitations that should be based on the number of running threads and not on a per-user basis.

We've used it for the last 10 years.

Installation will be challenge for quick and one time use, some time the code not sync due to some issues,

There have been no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues with scaling it for our needs.

I haven't had to contact technical support.

It's straightforward, but too much configuration is required with SVN or local code.

Westraightforward, but too much configuration is required with SVN or local code.

If the project life cycle is delivered through some standard ICONIC process E2E then Sparx will help a lot for artifacts.

The document generation tool. The ability to define templates based on our corporate documentation standards and automatically generate documents at a click of a button is such a productivity booster.

I don't know where to start. I've used Sparx at one organization and was subsequently primarily involved in the adoption and implementation of EA at another organization.

We transformed the tooling from a mis-mash of Gliffy diagrams, web-sequence diagrams, and some Aris for capturing requirements. We have implemented standardized EA models aided by templates. It increased the productivity due to ease of use. It provided a uniform tool from requirements analysis to technical design specifications used across teams. We have more complete models that are published and accessible, they reflect changes in real time. Links across components aids in impact assessment.

Repository integration. SVN based repositories can be a pain to merge changes. The database based repository can become slow.

I've used it for approximately eight years, but only about three years extensive use.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

We created a database repository. Adding users and growing the model did add a fair amount of latency.

We have had no issues scaling it/

I've not had to use customer service.

I've not had to use tech support. The online help, forums and tutorials were sufficient to solve the problems that I encountered.

I have evaluated various tools - IBM Rational Software Architect, briefly played with SyBase Power Designer and Archi. I found them difficult to use, a steeper learning curve, or they did only a portion of the modelling.

Easy and intuitive way of creating diagrams, reverse engineering tools for Java and databases. It also provides a centralized RDBMS repository for all models with automatic element level locking.

EA is just a tool and can't help you in any way, unless proper government process is enforced. In order to set-up sustainable gov. processes you have to have clear understanding between business and IT. As we all know IT doesn't speak the business language and business is not able to keep up with IT. We have exchanged "language" for picture (diagrams) and the result was awesome. Understanding now is more clear and and straightforward. EA helped us to express our IT vision in conceptual and logical models which are easy to explain to top management. Any changes or buss requirements are modeled first and then implemented. 

EA has its weakness as well. Security model for rdbms repository is very basic. You can't restrict users or groups to certain part of models and due to this limitation sharing with external companies is possible via xmi only. Performance of remote rdbms is nightmare and the reason is that every link and every attribute is separate sequential insert/update to db. In our case speed is 10-15 inserts per second! Model with couple thousand links just take forever to upload. Workaround is to host EA and db on one citrix physical machine what comes with additional cost. Have guys from Sparx heard of "batch insert mode"? 

There is plenty room for improvements, but overall for most of the time we use basic functionality which just works.

Class diagrams, component diagrams, and sequence diagrams. In our organization, we use Sparx EA for low level architecture which connects to the enterprise architecture. We use it to document information models using class diagrams and object models, solution/domain architecture using component and sequence diagrams.

The communication amongst several parties using common language and using a repository.

1. Could have better reporting functions
2. Performance could be improved when the file based repository size increases
3. Would be nice if it takes excel inputs for creating a list of objects and maybe even relations.

We've used it for three and a half years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

Stability is sometimes an issue when it comes up with synchronization errors and does not give any specific message as to the reason behind it.

Scalability becomes an issue as long as we are working on file based repository.

Customer service has been good whenever I contacted them.

I used Rational Rose for UML modeling before this. Currently, I use Software AG's ARIS for enterprise architecture and Sparx EA for information modeling and solution architecture. Sparx does not have the depth that ARIS provides but I like the flexibility and ease of use , despite its lack of reporting and import capabilities.

It was straightforward.

In-house and independent installations usually, so far.

Currently, it is only used as one of the several tools and is still being discussed about the capacity in which we should use this tool.

It depends on the scope and the level of architecture that is intended to be done. For day-to-day modeling and solutions, it is a very good repository-based tool.

UML modelling, XML generation import/export, design patterns, automated generation of documentation, XMI import/export. Benefits to the business accrue from adoption of model-driven architecture principles and practices. The tool and its features make application of these principles productive, efficient and shared by the architects community, thus helping achieve the benefits in practice

Shared models capture digitally fundamental knowledge about the business and its representation in ICT systems. Tooling makes this knowledge shareable, reusable, validated, rigorous, open and  turns it into a common asset of the Company rather than an arcane informal insight of a few individuals. Helps communicate with vendors and quickly bring new hires or new project members up to speed on projects

In truth we are still using an older version of the product, and we are aware of a number of improvements that have been made to it since. We feel that compatibility with other MDA modelling products, particularly open source such as Visual Paradigm, Modelio or Capella is an area of improvement, as well as better integration with Integrated Development Environments. We would benefit from better support of REST web services and JSON. However we would not encourage ‘bundling’ Enterprise Architecture with IDEs: we prefer Sparx Systems to specialize in building the best modelling tool and features, but allowing a wide choice of IDES. The fundamental reason for this is that we cannot and do not wish to enforce the use of a single tool on all our partners: we want to be able to use a single model, not a single tool

We've been using it since 2010/11.

We've had no issues with the deployment.

We've had no stability issues.

We've been able to scale it to our needs without issue.

We have had very little, or no, need for customer service, which we count as excellent digital customer service level is delivered through the online tools and the forum.

It was in fact straightforward, which was one of the determinants for selecting it.

Implementation and training was done in house under control of an experienced MDA practictioner. We did in fact train our partners.

Depending of what items enter in the computation of ‘return’ the ROI can be estimated from high to very high, productivity gains measured in either shorter lifecycles or headcounts of personnel required to build effective models.

We have evaluated other products both before and after the adoption of Enterprise Architect. We selected EI as the best quality/price to ease of learning and use. 

The tool is not a substitute for brains; it boosts the productivity of your thinking process, resulting in the very fast production of good models, but of bad ones just as easily, except that a good thinker can sport bad designs early before they become implemented disasters.