"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."
"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."
"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
"The solution's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models is fantastic. We use it for that on a regular basis to make sure that changes haven't been made to the database outside of the modeling process. I can take existing databases and reverse engineer them and understand their structure within 15 minutes. If I didn't have Data Modeler it would take hours. It increases our productivity and helps in understanding our legacy application."
"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."
"There is absolutely no problem with the stability."
"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."
"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 and columns or the entities and attributes, ensures that the users understand what the data is so that they can use it best and most successfully."
"The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too."
"I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"Very good repository features."
"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."
"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 am not so happy with its speed. Sometimes, it can have problems with connections."
"The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"Connectivity can be improved because it's not very good."
"Technical support could be better and more human."
"The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high."
"There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed."
"I have found the solution not easy to use. When publishing you have to download the HTML, make adjustments against the updated HTML, convert it to HTML, then finally paste the HTML. There is not an on-the-fly function available to bypass the step-by-step converting process that other solutions have."
"UI could be improved by enabling simpler navigation."
"The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product."
erwin Data Modeler (DM) is ranked 2nd in Architecture Management with 19 reviews while SAP PowerDesigner is ranked 4th in Architecture Management with 8 reviews. erwin Data Modeler (DM) is rated 8.8, while SAP PowerDesigner is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of erwin Data Modeler (DM) writes "Improves accuracy for generating target databases, allows us to pull metadata from a database, and makes it easy to display information and models". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP PowerDesigner writes "Ability to work on a single repository is great; web portal enables view from the browser perspective". erwin Data Modeler (DM) is most compared with IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, AWS Well-Architected Tool, Lucidchart and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, whereas SAP PowerDesigner is most compared with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, IDERA ER/Studio, erwin Evolve and SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer. See our SAP PowerDesigner vs. erwin Data Modeler (DM) report.
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15 years ago was the one time I chose to use PowerDesigner over Erwin Data Modeler was for a project where we have hundreds of pl/sql ETL scripts that needed to be run in a specific order for specific tables. PowerDesigner had the ability to store the pl/sql within the data model and prioritize/order the script run sequence. This meant that we could count on PowerDesigner to automatically generate the ddl and pl/sql code in the correct run order, rather than manually maintaining a spreadsheet with the script order and running each script manually, a VERY labor intensive process. I don't know if PowerDesigner still has that capability.
With all of the ways we have to program and perform ETL, Erwin Data Modeler has been my tool of choice for any other project throughout the years. Protecting intellectual property and transparently sharing data model information with other modelers by saving the the models in a centralized location (i.e. Model Mart) is important for any company. Making the data model diagrams transparently accessible via Web Portal is another important step in ensuring both technical and business users understand the structure and relationships of the data contains within a data store. Lastly, making the data model metadata available via the Erwin Data Intelligence Suite enables both technical and business users to completely understand everything about the data and data store: Business Glossary, Reference Data, Governance, Data Quality, Data Mapping, and especially automating data lineage and impact analysis.