We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and iServer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Architecture Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."
"When you're getting down to the database level, where you're building a design and you're creating DDL out of it, or you're going in the other direction where you're reaching into system catalogs and bringing things back, that starts to really require specialization. Visio isn't going to reverse-engineer that for you. Those features in erwin are valuable."
"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."
"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The solution’s code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources, as there is no development time. Code doesn't even have to be reviewed. We have been using this solution for so long and all the code which has been generated is accurate with the requirements. Once we generate the DDLs out of the erwin tools, the development team does a quick review of the script line by line. They will just be running the script on the database and looking into other requirements, such as the index. So, there is less effort from development side to create tables or build a database."
"We use the Forward and Reverse Engineering tools to help us speed things up and create things that would have to be done otherwise by hand. E.g., getting a database into a data model format or vice versa."
"It allows us to create logical data models. We can represent a database model in business terms, which is very useful for us."
"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 just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."
"The most valuable features of iServer are the integration with Microsoft Office and the interface is similar to Microsoft applications making them easy to use."
"The solution has wide use within Microsoft products. The integration with Microsoft products, and, in particular, Microsoft Office, is great."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We like the governance."
"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."
"iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management."
"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."
"I have to think less with this solution. It's simple."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"Although Quest Software has made tremendous strides in recent years, they need to evolve more in the big data arena; erwin Data Modeler could use a little more work when it comes to big database designs."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."
"I am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"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."
"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."
"Requirements management needs to be improved."
"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."
"The modelling needs improvement, specifically forecasting capabilities and scenarios."
"We could allocate permissions to use only specific components to the users rather than the entire instance."
"There can be some performance issues using the solution that should be improved. When you make modifications modify to files there are embedded data within that can take a while to process."
"It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution."
"There could be features for process mining, process simulation, and analytics."
"It runs relatively slowly."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 37 reviews while iServer is ranked 6th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 15 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while iServer is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of erwin Data Modeler by Quest writes "The product lets users import different types of models, but it is expensive, and the interface must be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of iServer writes "Enables flexible parameters for any process model and has a valuable document management feature ". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, Lucidchart and BiZZdesign HoriZZon, whereas iServer is most compared with LeanIX, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, ARIS BPA and OrbusInfinity. See our erwin Data Modeler by Quest vs. iServer report.
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