Re: Data Modelling Tools?

A really good tool that you should check out is called Infomodeler (IM), and it is made by a company called Infomodelers (www.infomodelers.com)

I am very unimpressed with Designer 2000, especially when it comes time to manage a schema that actually has data in it (which is going to happen sooner or later, and will even probably occur in your test environment sooner rather than later). Infomodeler does a really good job of synching the model to the schema, and altering an existing schema. For those alterations that cannot be handled by a simple ALTER statement, Infomodeler will automatically make the backup table for you, migrate the data to the backup drop all associated foreign keys (parent and child), drop the original table, create your "altered" table, re-migrate the data, and rebuild all the right keys. I much prefer this to just getting a CREATE table script, and having to do all that work by hand.

ERWin isn't all that bad a tool, but Infomodeler will do everything ERwin does, plus IM's synch feature is more robust. In addition, IM's interface is much better, and IM supports OLE automation, so your meta-data isn't locked up inside the model.

But the thing that really sets IM apart from all other tools is it's support for Object Role Modeling (ORM). ORM is a true conceptual modeling language (whereas IDEF1X and many other modeling approaches are more logical than conceptual. To build a model in ORM, you identify objects and the business facts in which they participate, not entities and attributes. ORM models can be expressed completely as a series of plain English like statements (each of which can be populated with example data), or graphically. Infomodeler will automatically create a properly normalized logical schema from your ORM conceptual model. It will then generate a physical schema for you. One of the nice things about ORM models is the plain language verbalization. The Infomodeler driver can optionally write most of that verbalization as a COMMENT into the Oracle dictionary.

Anyway check out the eval version of the Web site. I do not work for Infomodelers. I am crazy about their product, and have conducted training for them, but the reason I have a relationship with them is because I like what they do.

Thanks,

Bill MacLean
(To reply to me, remove the leading
'NOSPAM') from the following:
NOSPAMbmaclean_at_worldnet.att.net

James Petts <jpetts_at_celltech.co.uk> wrote in article <34BC7841.5E9E_at_celltech.co.uk>...
> Erwin?
> ER/1?
> EasyCASE?
> ERStudio?
> Designer/2000?
>
> Lots of them, lots of choices, lots of price variation...
>
> Any significantly better (or more importantly, worse) than
> the others? Any comparitive charts available anywhere?
>
> Should I steer clear of any, or should I just choose one, go
> for it, and stick with it...
>
> Any/all recommendations/comments appreciated.
> --
> James "I'd rather fall off Ilustrada than ride any other horse" Petts
>
  Received on Thu Jan 15 1998 - 00:00:00 CET