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Zaloni Data Platform vs erwin Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

erwin Data Modeler
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (4th), Business Process Design (10th)
Zaloni Data Platform
Average Rating
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (39th), Data Preparation Tools (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

JorgeSanz - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline data modeling and automate network changes for increased efficiency
The initial setup depends on the tool if you are using the data model environment. Stopping the server could be complex and require strong expertise. If you have everything set up and configured, Erwin is straightforward. You can deploy it in a few hours. In our case, it took a couple of months to address internal conditions, assign machines, and set up everything for the services. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
reviewer1476264 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solid multi-ingestion tool but with poor exception handling
The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens (an event is when the job stops in the middle of the process), it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue. Another issue is that sometimes your jobs fail and if you run it a second time, it will go through. A third area it could be improved is the deployment process. When you want to deploy anything, it has a lot of manual processes. For example, you have to create your password in an encrypted format, and then you have to use a lot of manual deployment process. They should actually be building something else, like using Jenkins or automating their process. I have suggested to them that they have to improve their deployment process because they want everyone to run a manual deployment. It takes a lot of time, about half a day, for any single deployment. Then test it, then it might not work, and then reverting back is not easy because of the manual deployment process. I think in recent versions they added a lot of upgrades and additional features including a lot of integrations. Before it was just AWS, later they extended it to Azure. I'm not sure how they have extended it to GCP. It has some built-in features and a lot of improvements now because the UI and the features were not easy to navigate. Regarding showing the metrics, it's okay. I will say it's neither easy nor hard, there is whatever is required. Lastly, on the governance side, it's not very good. We faced some issues with the Ranger version. Ranger was an authentication tool on big data and Zaloni had some compatibility issues with the Ranger at that time. Later they said those are all going to be resolved, but at that time it had some issues. I'm not sure whether it was working with the Sentry or not.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."
"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 generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."
"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 ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."
"Any tool will do diagramming but I think the ability to put the stuff up in a graphical fashion, then think about it, and keep things consistent is what's valuable about it. It's too easy when you're using other methods to not have naming consistent standards and column consistent definitions, et cetera."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to map data and write workflows with logic inside them."
"You can create a lot of ingestions based on the file levels or based on the time."
 

Cons

"The interface must be improved."
"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."
"erwin is not as robust as a data warehousing project I've been on in the past."
"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."
"There is a lack of local support in the China region."
"It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability five out of ten."
"I would like to see the ability to support more NoSQL platforms more quickly. In addition, enhancing the graphics to render more quickly would be beneficial for any user."
"One of the things I've been talking to the erwin team about through the years is that every data model should have the ability to be multi-language... When I was working at Honda, it became very difficult to work with the Japanese teams using just one model. You can have two models, one in English and one in Japanese, but that means you have to keep the updates back and forth, and that always increases the risk of something not being updated."
"The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens, it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The primary reasons that erwin was selected were that it was much more affordable for us [than Embarcadero] and it was easily maintainable."
"Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money."
"erwin has this option where you pay a one-time fee and you have the license for six years, which makes sense because I don't upgrade my database engine every other year. I have an application that depends on it. This is something weird about PowerDesigner. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"There is either a one-year or three-year license. It is not a pay-as-you-go license like a SaaS solution. It’s more of a traditional licensing. They are a little bit on the pricier side."
"The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world."
"An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it. This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists. There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool."
"erwin Data Modeler by Quest is an expensive solution."
"Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
Forward engineering, DDL generation, reverse engineering, and reporting are the most valuable features of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Modeler by Quest?
As a documenting tool, it's solid, though its reporting could be more robust. The reporting mechanisms could be more intuitive regarding report creation. It can generate reports in CSV files, displ...
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Also Known As

erwin DM
ZDP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

 Premera, America Honda Motors, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Dental Dental Cali, Cigna, Staples
CDS Global, AIG,
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