erwin Data Modeler by Quest Reviews

When I work from home, my use case for erwin is for when I get a request for a database upgrade. Usually, the request comes in with a whole bunch of tables and names so I'll go into the DM and I'll start building out what they're asking for. Once we actually get them to be able to view it and understand it, then we'll go back and forth with the developers and the requesters to make sure that it's exactly what they're looking for. We'll spend a few days making sure everything looks correct. Once that's finished, I'll send it out. 

Unfortunately, I can't do a PDF straight from erwin so I'll copy everything into Word and then save my Word as a PDF. With that PDF, I'll be able to send it off to all the stakeholders, not just the developers and the requesters, so that everybody can see it, even the ones that don't have erwin itself.

My office use case is pretty much the same, except with the office, we add in Model Mart. We have our entire network, all the databases, and everything in Model Mart and it's over 1,500 different tables, relationships, attributes, and things like that. It's a really large model. Then, we break down that model into individual subject areas and we work through those. We go back to any new requests, we'll build them in Data Modeler and we'll go back and forth with the requesters, making sure everything looks like what they're expecting it to. They'll usually just send us either a spreadsheet of names and data types and then we build from there.

erwin brings data to life. We're currently working with a requester at that moment, who provided us with a spreadsheet of their ideas of tables and attributes with the metadata associated with each. Then they provided us a rudimentary diagram with tables and keys. I was able to put it into erwin along with the metadata that they were asking for, and it really brought questions to life. The people said, "We didn't realize the relationships were going to bring in these extra keys." And they didn't realize there were a lot of extra pieces coming in as well. Once we did that, we were able to show them exactly what they were asking for and it brought much more conversation between us.

We don't use DM's modeling support for Snowflake cloud yet. I am interested in cloud technology and I just came across that support that erwin has. It made me even more interested in cloud technology. 

Its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data helps another office in my company that uses it quite a bit. 

The automatic build to the physical is a really nice feature. I like the fact that it will bring the keys down from one table to the next, from a parent to child table. Those two things make erwin a very easy to use product. 

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.

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. It's a learning curve for me. It could be easier to use, but it's not a Windows/Microsoft type of application. It's close to it but it's also not. Once I've used it enough and learned it, then I'll know where all the pieces are.

I've been a data modeler in my office for six years so I've been using erwin for six years. My office has been using erwin since the beginning of time. I'm not exactly sure when they started using it, but the office has been around for 20 years so they've probably been using it since erwin started.

It's on our secret network and I believe they've been going back and forth quite a bit with erwin's tech teams as far as getting it to work because I think our workstations are virtual workstations and there were some issues with the licensing and the license server. I've been watching that from the peripherals but not really getting in the weeds with them. I'm not sure exactly what they're doing.

I've only had it crash on me once. I can't remember what I was doing and when or how it crashed. It was one of those inconvenient times and so I started again. I don't think an auto-save was done. That happened three weeks ago.

I use it at home every day and there are days where I've used it almost an entire eight hour day. I'm using it quite heavily right now.

The only time I've had to use erwin technical support was when I requested an extension on my trial license. They were really quick and good about it.

The initial setup was straightforward. I was able to install it at home without a problem whatsoever. Within a few seconds, I was able to figure out how to start building a table. I had no problems whatsoever. I think my colleagues who are going into work might have a little bit of a different answer because of issues with service, license keys, and what have you.

The deployment took five to ten minutes. There wasn't a lot of customization necessary. It's been a couple of months now since I've started doing it. I can see from the tab that I'm on that I need to just click on the table, click the area there, and start building tables. I've also had experience with it, so that makes it easier as well. It's intuitive.

At the office, there's quite a bit of strategy on how they needed to deploy it and how they needed to have it totally set up in the virtual world. They were upgrading from an older version.

At our office, we have two or three different people that were truly involved, but we did have one main person doing the going back and forth with erwin as far as getting help and setting it up. That took a couple of weeks, if not longer, to actually get it set up working correctly.

We bought a total of 10 licenses, although I'm not so sure. It's less than 25.

I would definitely say that it's a time saver once you learn how to use the application. It takes a little while to teach people how to use it just like with any other application, but as far as time-saving afterward, it's invaluable. As far as taking the time to truly show a person the end result, we can show them exactly what we're talking about and that's really invaluable. I'm sure the deployment would say the same thing as far as being able to build the database off of it.

The accuracy and speed in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it. At the same time, I don't do that.

It saves us a couple of hours of actually trying to build something. It's not something that my office does every day. However, when we do it, I could not imagine building tables or building a diagram from any other tools that are currently in the office. It's impossible to do it from PowerPoint or Word. 

I don't think that the pricing for my office is horrible. However, from my home, there's absolutely no way I could afford erwin on my own as far as doing my own work.

There have been discussions between my office and the actual company that I work for and trying to decide on who would actually pay the bill. I'm the person stuck in the middle saying that I can't do my work here and luckily, I've been able to get one or two extensions on my free trial license from erwin. However, I'm afraid that I won't be able to get my company to pay for it and fairly soon the trial license will end up expiring on me.

I decided to build physical only but later on that kind of bit me and so I will start building logical first and then the physical. It would be nice to be able to build out my own set of tables and maybe a Model Mart type of situation but I don't see me being able to afford a copy at home for myself. I won't be able to continue keeping a trial copy forever and until COVID is over.

When COVID started, I did start looking at home versions of other freeware because I had time to actually do some research. I found that most of the freeware wasn't really free. It was also still kind of clunky and one of the applications that I was using didn't automatically bring the keys down and for me, that was a killer right there. I would not suggest the application to anyone. From the trial copies of the other applications they use, I think that's where erwin really comes up ahead, above the other applications.

The biggest lesson I have learned from erwin is the old cliche, that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is truly erwin in itself. When a person asks for a set of tables and they actually see that diagram visually, it really assists in any meeting that you will have. It is key to any meeting you have.

I would rate Data Modeler an eight out of ten. The reason for this rating is because I did a couple of dumb attributes and it took me forever to find how to truly delete it. It was a parent-child relationship and I deleted the parent and did not answer the question from the next box that popped up correctly. So I had an attribute hanging out in a table and it took me forever to find the dangling relationships. Because of that, I knocked it down a rating because it did take me a long time to find that.

I'm quite happy with the modeling tool. It does just about everything that I need it to do. I can't really think of what it doesn't do that I would need other than the PDF. I'm really happy with it.

I'm an application developer with a fair amount of database background so I mostly use the tool to do physical modeling to support our application development. I'm a firm believer in not just adding columns to a table but to actually think about it, put together an Erwin model, and look at the relationships. I used to like to generate the model and generate changes all through the tool but being honest, one of my biggest frustrations with Erwin is that it's very difficult to forward engineer and keep things in sync. It used to be so easy and now it's very difficult. It's very frustrating to use this tool for that.

We use it for data modeling but they also do a lot of logical modeling and architecture, and we also use the naming standards capability to force corporate standards across the models.

It has improved my organization because using a data modeling tool is forcing us to come up with better models.

Its code generation ensures accurate engineering of data sources. It should generate correct code, so I can't say it cuts development time just because it's doing what it's supposed to be doing correctly.

I think the ability to depict the model in a graphical fashion, 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.

This isn't specific to Erwin, it's specific to any data modeling tool but we also like:

• The ability to graphically depict how the relationships occur and the relationship lines.
• The fact that it migrates your foreign keys for you.
• The general principles of what a data modeling tool does. 

Erwin does a lot of things well. It's just very frustrating in some areas that really should not be frustrating.

The people who don't use a data modeling tool but rather use spreadsheets or wing it typically have pretty poor data models. If you use a data modeling tool, the graphical nature of the data modeling tool forces you to think about relationships. It forces you to ask questions that you wouldn't ask if you were just creating tables and doing it off the top of your head. That's number one, in my opinion, from my own experience. The number one benefit of using a tool like Erwin, is that visual representation forces you to come up with a better model.

Its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources is useful but we're 99% SQL Server, so the fact that it generates 60 other databases doesn't really help me too much. It doesn't support Postgres or Redshift which are the two other systems that we're using. 

I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. The whole workflow of adding columns to a table could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. Resizing dialog boxes, changing fonts, printing, scrolling around in the UI, etc is very clunky.

I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of Erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every other tool has its own set of problems, and it seems like if I have to pick my poison, I stay with Erwin. But so many things that are clunky with it. 

My biggest frustrations with the product is forward engineering and keeping things in sync. A lot of times I need to change a column definition and all I want to do forward engineer it over to the database, it used to be so easy to do that, way back in the early days with Erwin before CA bought it, and now it's almost impossible. It's very frustrating to do. I've spoken to Erwin about this in the past, and I can understand why they're doing some of the things they're doing, but I'm more of a casual user than a power user, and for me, it's so clunky. It's so much easier using Embarcadero to forward engineer changes to a database than it is using Erwin.

This product has been on the market for years and I'm amazed at some of the quirky things that I still have to deal with in this product. I wish rather than adding new features, Erwin would fix some of these usability issues.

I have been using erwin Data Modeler for around ten years before it was owned by CA.

Other than the bugs, it doesn't crash on me, so I guess the stability is good. 

We have somewhere around 20 uses. I use it as a developer and the data architects use it as well. 

We use the Mart model, we break them out into areas, and there are many models in each area. So we have around a couple hundred models.

I haven't used their support in quite a while, so I'll say neutral.

We previously used Toad and Embarcadero.

I've been using Erwin since it first came out, a long time ago. Back then it was a lot simpler to use and it was just so much easier. I think they tried to make it do everything for everybody and now it's very difficult to do some of the simplest tasks. It's very frustrating, and there are a lot of issues.

The forward engineering frustration I experience with Erwin is a thousand times easier in Embarcadero. If I want to just make a quick change to a column and forward engineer it to my database, it's a lot easier in other tools.

Some of the other tools were a lot better in the ease of use and stability of the UI but they also had their share of problems that are deal-breakers. For example, models won't print on one page.  I keep coming back to Erwin. It was the lesser of the two evils. No product is perfect but I think Erwin tries to be everything to everybody, and sometimes when you do that, it's no good to anybody.

I don't use all the features, it's nice that they're there, but I wish the stuff that I did use was better usability-tested. 

I was not involved in the installation of this particular version. When we first started using erwin, we used to install it on our local machines, but now we're using the Mart model and it's installed on servers, so we have a group that maintains it. For years and years, it used to be that we all just installed it on our local machines and ran it that way. 

It's a licensing thing. We have a concurrent license so by having it on a server, it's in one place, which is nice. That way, everyone's running the same version. Then, because we have concurrent licensing, if you have 30 people that need to use it, but people like me only use it once in a while, you don't have to buy me an expensive, dedicated license, so it's a lot cheaper to have a concurrent license for our company.

It's not necessarily erwin-specific, but by using a data modeling tool, it forces a better product, better application development, and better applications at our company. Using a tool like that is a must-have. 

I like the concurrent licensing. That's phenomenal. I think that was a big win for us.

Sometimes you have an initial idea for a data model and when you try to design it in Erwin you realize that you were wrong in how you approached it. Erwin enforces consistency and accuracy. Quite often I learn something by looking at the generated code. It's not like I create table statements all day long. I don't do that generally. So when I use the tool, it generates the correct code in scripts for me which we will then hand off to the DBAs who run them. 

I would rate it a six out of ten. It's frustrating. It could be so much better. 

The problem is mostly usability. It has little quirks about the way the screen refreshes, things move around, and the workflow when you're creating columns and tables could be so much better. 

I have a love-hate relationship. I've used this product for years. I've actually gone to training on it at Erwin, so I know what I'm doing with it. I wish they would make it easier to use. I would think if Microsoft bought it, this would be a totally different product.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft has tried to come out with data modeling tools a few times, and they are all bad. They're basically toys. You can't use them for anything real, which is surprising to me. You would have thought that they would have had a tool that could compete.

There are only a couple of big players out there that Erwin competes with. I looked at just about all of them, and I keep coming back to Erwin, but I hate it nonetheless. There's nothing better. There are certain tools that are better in certain areas but far worse in others, and so you pick your poison.

The use cases are for our enterprise data warehouse where we have an enterprise model being maintained and we have about 11 business-capability models being maintained. Examples of business capabilities would be finance, human resources, supply-chain, sales and marketing, and procurement. We maintain business domain models in addition to the enterprise model.

We're on-premise, a virtualized data center. We're running this as client-server, the client being PC-driven and the back-end for the erwin Mart is virtualized Windows Servers.

Collaboration is very important because it's important to have an enterprise-view of data, as opposed to a project-specific view of data. Using the business capability models, we're able to augment those models based on a project-by-project implementation. And each of those implementations goes through a review process before those business capability models are finalized. That adds a lot of value in data consistency and data replication when it comes to the models. We can discover where there is duplication and inconsistency. It also helps with the data descriptions, the metadata, about the purpose of using certain designs and certain descriptions for tables and patterns, for the data elements. It helps enforce the data standards that we've adopted.

Each data modeler has their own way of designing the models, but no modeler is starting from a blank sheet of paper. By reverse-engineering models, and by creating models that are based off of popular packages — for example SAP or JD Edwards or Workday — you're able to construct your own data model and leverage the metadata that comes along with the application models. You are able to integrate the data based on these models.

These modeling tasks deal with applications, and some of the applications are mission-critical and some are not. Most of the applications are not; it's more an analytical/reporting nature that these models represent. The models are key for data discovery of where things are, which makes it more transparent to the user.

The solution's code generation pretty much ensures accurate engineering of data sources. If you're reverse-engineering a data source, it's good to have the script for examination, but it's valuable in that it describes data elements. So you get accurate data types from those. It cuts down on the integration development time. The mapping process of source-to-target is a lot easier once you know what the source model is and what your target mapping is.

The most valuable features are being able to visualize the data in the diagrams and transform those diagrams into physical database deployments. These features help, specifically, to integrate the data. When the source data is accumulated and modeled, the target model is in erwin and it helps resolve the data integration patterns that are required to map the data to accommodate a model.

Also, collaboration around maintenance and usage is associated with data model development and expertise coming from a review process, before the data is actually deployed on a platform. So the data models are reviewed and the data sources are discovered and profiled, allowing them to be mapped to the business capability models.

The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms.

There should also be improvements to capture erwin models in third-party products, for example, data catalogs and things of that nature, where the vendors have to be more aware of the different releases of product and what they support during that type of interaction. Instead of being three or four releases behind from one product to another, the products should become more aligned with each other. So if you're using an Erwin model in a data catalog, you should be able to scan that model based on the level of the Erwin model. If the old model is a certain release, the capture of that should be at the same release.

I've been using erwin Data Modeler since 2014.

There haven't been too many problems with stability so we're pretty pleased with the stability of it. Once in a while things may go awry but then we open up a request.

We haven't had any issues with scalability. Licensing is very supportive of the scalability because of the type of license we use, which is concurrent. We don't anticipate any issues with scalability: not in terms of the number of users and not in terms of the scalability of some of the models. 

Some of the models are quite large and therefore our data modeling framework helps us because we're able to have multiple models that are loosely coupled and make up our enterprise model. So we're not maintaining one model for all the changes. We're maintaining several models, which makes it a lot easier to distribute the scalability of those models and the number of objects in those models.

Technical support has been pretty good. We've had licensing issues. There have also been some bugs that have been repaired and there have been some issues with installation. But all in all, it's been pretty good.

We did not have a previous solution.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. 

The only thing that we would like to see improved would be having the product support a silent install. If we were able to deploy the product from a predefined script, as opposed to a native installation, such as on a Windows platform, that would help. We are such a large company that we would prefer to package the erwin installation in one of our custom scripts so we could put it in our application store. It's much along the lines of thinking of an iPhone or an Android application in an application store where you're able to have it scripted for deployment, as opposed to installing it natively.

Our deployment took just a few months. We constantly go through deployments as new people come onboard, especially consultants. Usually, with a consultant engagement using a data modeler, you have to be able to deploy the software to them. Anything that helps them out in that process is good.

Our deployment plan was to test the product in a development environment, and have people trained through either self-service video instruction or through on-the-job-training. We were then able to be productive in a production environment.

ROI is hard to measure. If we did measure it, it would be more of a productivity jump of around 10 percent and would also be seen in data standardization. All of these numbers are intangible. There is more of an intangible benefit than a tangible benefit. It's hard to really put a dollar on some of the data governance processes that erwin supports.

Standardization is very difficult to put a price tag on or to estimate its return on investment. But we do have data standards; we are using standard names and abbreviations and we do have some standards domains and data types. Those things, in themselves, have contributed to consistency, but I don't know how you measure the consistency. When it comes to enterprise-data warehousing, it's a lot easier for end-users to understand the context of data by having these standards in place. That way, the people who use the data know what they're looking at and where it is. If they need to look at how it's designed, then they can get into the product a little deeper and are able to visualize the designs of some of this data.

The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources absolutely make the cost of the tool worth it. erwin supports the Agile methodology, which tends to stabilize your data before you start your sprints and before application development runs its course.

We pay on a one-year subscription basis.

The biggest lesson that I've learned in using this solution is to have a data governance process in place that allows you to use erwin more easily, as opposed to it being optional. There are times when people like to do design without erwin, but that design is not architected. It pays to have some sort of model governance or data governance process in place, so models can be inspected and approved and deployed on database platforms.

We use it primarily for first drafts of database scripts, both in a relational database environment and other types of environments. The models represent those physical implementations. The database scripting part is heavily modified after the first draft to include additional features of those database platforms. So we find erwin DM less valuable through that and we find it more valuable creating initial drafts and reverse-engineering databases. It cuts development time for us to some degree, maybe 10 percent, but all in all, there are still a lot of extensions to the scripting language that are not included with the erwin product.

In our company, there are about 130 users, globally. From time to time the number varies. Most of those users are either the data modelers or data architects. There are fewer enterprise data architects. The other users would just be erwin Web Portal users who want to have a little bit of an understanding about what's in a data model and be able to search for things in the data model. For deployment and maintenance of this solution we have about two infrastructure people, in an 8 x 5 support model.

We work on different platforms like SQL Sever, Oracle, DB2, Teradata and NOSQL. When we take in requirements, it will be through Excel spreadsheet which is a Mapping Document and this contains information about Source and Target and there mapping and transformation rules. We understand the requirements and start building the conceptual model and then the logical model. When we have these Data Models built in erwin Data Modeler tool, we generate the PDF Data Model diagrams and take it to the team (DBA, BSAs, QA and others)  to explain the model diagram. Once everything is reviewed, then we go on to discuss the physical Data Model. This is one aspect of the requirement from Data Warehouse perspective. 

Other aspect of the requirement can be from the operational systems where the application requirements might come through as DDLs with SQL extension files where we reverse engineer those files and have the models generated within erwin Data Modeler. Some of them, we follow the same templates as they are. But some others, once we reverse-engineer and have that Model within the erwin, we make changes to entity names, table names and capture metadata according to RBC standards. We have standards defined internally, and we follow and apply these standards on the Data Models.

There are different access level permissions given to different users who are Data Modelers, Data Architects, Database Administrators, etc. These permission have read, write and delete options. Some team members only have read-only access to the Data Models while others have more. Therefore, this helps us with security and maintain the Data Models.

The solution’s ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time in only some scenarios for us where we have the data model build into the erwin tool. E.g., I can generate a DDL for the DBAs to create tables on the database. But, in other scenarios, it will be the DBAs who will access the erwin tool with read-only access. They will fetch the DDLs from the models that we created. Once the DDL is generated from the erwin tool, it is all about running the script on the database to create tables and relationships. There are some other scenarios where we might add an index or a default value based on the requirements. 90 percent of the work is being done by the tool.

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 have a very large number of operational and Data Mart Data Models inside of the erwin tool. It has a huge volume of metadata captured. Therefore, when we are working on a very large requirement, there is an option called Bulk Editor where we can input large files into the erwin in one shot to build the Data Mode with much lesser time. All the built-in features are easy to use.

We make use of the solution’s configurable workspace and modeling canvas. All the features available help us to build our Data Model, show the entities, and the relationship between the entities, define the data types and add description of the entities and attributes. With all of this we can take out the PDF version of the Data Model diagram, then send them across for any teams to review.

Not to forget the version saving feature. Every time we make changes by adding, deleting and modifying to the Data Models and save, the tool automatically create a new Data Model versions so we don't lose any work. We can go back to the previous versions and reverse all the changes and make it a current version if needed.

Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model.

I have been using this tool for five years. I have used this tool at my previous companies as well as in my current company.

One recent scenario that we came across was in our day-by-day activities, where Data Models are growing in very large numbers. For some reason, the performance was bit low. It was suggested to upgrade to the newer version, which is erwin Data Modeler 2019 R1. So, we are already in the process of moving into the newer version. Once we migrate, we will do all the user testing to see how the performance has increased from the previous version. If there still are any performance issues or other features errors, we will get back to the support team.

So far, whenever we have moved to a newer version, there has always been a positive result. We keep that version until we see a newer version. Every six months or once a year, we get in touch with the erwin support team to ask for any suggestions to see if any new features added and any enhancement to the newest version. Or, is it a right time to move into the newest version or just stick to our current version? They suggest based on our use cases and requirements.

For deployment and maintenance of this solution, five to 10 people are needed. E.g., two people are involved from our team, two DBAs, and two people from the server team and other teams.

What we have is a huge volume of data so far. We have a very large number of Data  Models with Operational Systems, Data Marts and it still has room for extension and expansion. 

Within my current company, this product has been accessed by Data Modelers, Database Administrators, Data Architects, and Data Scientists. 50 to 100 people have access to this solution.

Once a year or every two years, we upgrade to the latest version. If we are looking for any new features or enhancements to be used for new use cases or requirements, we get in touch with the erwin support team. They are very helpful in understanding and providing the best possible suggestions and solutions with a very impressive SLAs. They really guide us and give us a solution when we have to upgrade versions.

I have not used another solution with my current company. While I have used other solutions before, the majority of the time, I have been with erwin Data Modeler.

Whenever there is a new release, we do the testing, installation from scratch. The initial setup is straightforward. Once you install the product, it downloads onto your system. Once you double click, it gives you the basic instructions, like any other product. You just have to click on "next", where everything is configured already. 

Somethings might be company-specific requirements. For these, you have to make sure you select the right options. Apart from that, everything is straightforward. Until you get to the last page, where you give it your Server details and selecting the windows credentials to log in, and that is company specific.

Once we have it on the production environment, privileges are given only to Data Modelers who can read, write, and delete to design the Data Model.

This is implemented in-house where this software is packaged by Application Support team who deploys it on the production environment on our internal Software Center application. To download and install this solution takes about 40 to 50 minutes.

We haven't moved away from this product for a very long time. I am sure the company has seen benefits and profits out of the solution, saving a lot of work effort and resources.

The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources makes the cost of the tool definitely worth it.

This company had bought the license for three years, and it's not an individual license. While you can buy a license for each individual, that would be very expensive. There is something called concurrent licenses where you can purchase licenses in bulk and 15 to 20 people can access the license and model. Concurrent licenses are scalable to the number of users and are proportional to the cost. 

When I joined the company, the product was already here. Our internal team will have a meeting to discussion on new releases of this product. When we talk to the erwin support team, we ask, "What are the newest features? Will these be beneficial for our company based on the requirements and use cases?" Once everyone has given their opinion, then we move forward in upgrading to newer version considering the performance, new features or enhancements.

For our use cases and requirements, we are very happy with the erwin product. If we come across any issues or have any doubts about the tool, we get really good support from erwin support team.

They definitely have a positive impact on overall solutioning because of how they design and capture data. This is definitely something any company who is involved with data should look into, specifically when there are many database platforms and dealing with huge volume of data. It is definitely scalable as well, as we are one of the biggest financial institutions and have a very massive Data Models inside this tool.

The biggest lesson learnt from using this solution is how we can capture metadata along with the data structure of the database models. Sometimes, when we go to the business showing the designs of the conceptual/logical model, they want to understand what the table and each field is about. So, we do have an option to go into each entities/attributes to add the respective information and show them the metadata captured for these entities and attributes.

I would rate the newest releas as 9.5 out of 10. When our requirement use case change, the solution moves to a newer version and everything works fine. We are happy with that. However, as time goes, a year or two, we might come across some situations where we look for better enhancements of features or newer features.

The whole purpose of the erwin tool is for the designing of databases. We use it for our conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling.

We've been using this product as long as I can remember at our company, so it's hard to say how it has improved things. It's existed since I've been here. But it gives everybody the ability to see the physical implementations in a visual manner.

The solution is extremely critical to driving business change and transformation in our company because we do 100 percent of our data modeling using this tool. We meet with the business to show what exists and we show them what our changes are going to be to meet new requirements. We review that with business to get its agreement to the approach. We also meet with technology to show how it's going to be transformed in the physical implementation. So it is extremely critical to our everyday process.

The most valuable feature is the physical or visual representation of the database, showing the tables, the columns, the foreign keys, and the ability to generate DDL, so you can physically implement databases.

It lets you display the actual physically implemented databases or the logical databases. That enables you to review them with business users or technology people, to understand the relationships of the data throughout the company and show how data is joined together to achieve whatever the desired business results are.

I would like to see more support for working with the big-data world. There are so many new databases evolving and it's very hard for them to keep up with all of the new technologies. It would be good if they were able to dynamically support big-data platforms, other than Hive and Teradata. There's a new release coming out this year and they're adding two more platforms in that next release. So they are striving to keep up with technology, but technology is just evolving too rapidly. There are just too many options.

I've been using erwin since 1998 or 1999.

The solution is very stable. It continues to evolve. 

A lot of the things, a lot of the new tools that they're introducing as part of erwin, are to make it more of a data governance tool in general, beyond just the data modeling which we've traditionally used. That whole piece is rapidly evolving. I've been watching it evolve over the past two or three years. We're not ready to purchase the products yet that they're putting out because we feel things are still evolving, but in the next couple of years they'll be the leader in the entire data governance realm.

Data Modeler is very scalable. It keeps evolving as new technologies come out. People put in requests for it to be able to support different database platforms, and in just about every release in the past couple of years they've come out with support for one or two additional platforms. They are trying to keep up with customers' demands. They're very good about continuing to upgrade support for their legacy stuff as well. They're evolving and they're doing a pretty good job.

The product was sold by a company called Platinum when I first started using it. It was then sold to CA and I was involved when CA produced its first rollout. After being owned by CA, it then was spun off to its own, standalone company, as erwin. I was there for the initial deployment of that as well. So, I've done many deployments of erwin, as different releases have come out.

The setup has become more complex. That's probably related to the fact that they're doing more things on the cloud, such as licensing, which has caused problems because we have very tight security here. Access to servers outside of our firewall causes issues for people who work in certain regions around the world because we restrict access to the cloud for governance purposes. So, we have had some issues with licensing. People can't connect to the license server, because it's done over the cloud, so they have to do an off-line license, which locks the license. We have concurrent licenses. So when a license is locked, even though the person is no longer using the product, because that person is not connected through the cloud, erwin's system doesn't know to release the license. We've worked with erwin and they have tried to help mitigate that, but we still do encounter issues with licensing.

In terms of deployment, just the install of the product on somebody's machine takes about 10 minutes. It's not very long at all. There are other features, such as setting up users in Model Mart, which take longer because you have to analyze the user's needs and set up appropriate permissions. That could take longer, depending on what the user's roles are.

As for our implementation strategy for Data Modeler, we just deployed it on someone's computer. We tested it on that person's box, one that everybody had access to. We all got to try the tool to see that we wanted to use it and to understand its features. Once everybody was comfortable with the features of it, we then had to upgrade our Model Mart repository, which is where we store all of the erwin models. Everyone has to be on the same release. So, we have to QA the whole process of upgrading our Windows Server and upgrading our database server. After we do those upgrades, we can then deploy the software on the machines. 

That's probably one of the biggest issues: Everybody has to be on the exact same version and release to be able to work together, if you're using the Model Mart repository. It's not very backward-compatible.

We did have to involve erwin consultants because of the firewall issues that we were having when we were doing testing. We had to involve their helpdesk. Their helpdesk is extremely responsive. They actually tried to help us immediately on the phone. We needed a higher level of support so they scheduled meetings where we were sharing screens with them and they were able to help us. They were very helpful. One of the best features of erwin is its helpdesk.

It's hard to know how to gauge ROI. We've been using it since I got here. With the tool, we have a very good service-oriented architecture. We know exactly where all the data is; it's very clearly documented. If we didn't have this tool, I don't know how we would manage knowing where data is or manage having a consistent business glossary or data dictionary.

We've experimented with other solutions, such as ER/Studio, which has had different names. We experimented with SAP PowerDesigner, but that was not as robust in performing what we wanted it to do.

The main differences between the products we evaluated and erwin would be the ease of use, between logical and physical transformed models. The logical is more on the business side, and the physical is more on the technical side. The ease of maintaining those two models together was the number-one advantage of erwin. Number-two is the ability of the tool to support many platforms while successfully creating DDL, without issues with the DDL. erwin also has the ability to do compares of the models against the database, and to synchronize differences, whether importing database changes into the model or exporting the model to the database. Those were the primary things that it did well.

But I come back to ease of use. It's a very easy tool to train somebody on and for them to use. ER/Studio is probably the second-best product, but it's not as self-explanatory, it's not as easy to use. It's a little bit more clunky. It probably performs just as well, but it's a bit more difficult to use.

If you want good data architecture in your company, you need to have database design done. It's probably the most important factor for having things clearly modeled and documented. erwin Data Modeler is not just a modeling tool, it's also used for documentation. If you're using the tool's functions properly, analyzing the documentation, flagging fields that are NPPI data, it is invaluable for business use. You can generate data dictionaries, you can make sure people are speaking common languages, and you can enforce company standards so that people are doing things in a consistent manner. It's an invaluable tool. If you want to have good data architecture, you need to have a tool like this.

We don't currently use the collaborative web modeling capability. We just recently purchased that tool and we are planning on deploying it at the end of Q1 of this year.

We don't use the erwin data transformation for integration to a wider ecosystem. We are actually able to directly do all of the transformations that we need from erwin, so we're not required to do any transformations. It supports legacy systems like Db2, Oracle, SQL Server, and now Teradata and Hive, which were introduced in the past few years. But it can currently support all of the data modeling we need to support, so no transformations are needed.

We have different flavors of people who use the tool. We have people who are dedicated data architects, that's their full-time job. There are 15 to 20 of them in the company. And we have many people who do use it for very specific applications on more of a part-time basis, where they're doing the data modeling and reviewing it with an enterprise architect. There are about 150 people who are doing that. Overall, we have about 170 people who have access to the software.

For deployment, upgrades, and maintenance of the solution, we generally require four people. We require somebody to do a Windows upgrade; we require somebody to do a database upgrade, and that's for the Mart repository portion; and we have two people who do the testing for the erwin tool: somebody who installs the upgrades of erwin on the local machines, and somebody who's testing it. When it comes to the installs and the upgrades, each person who's using the tool is expected to do that on their own. We set up a deployment package and everyone runs it when they're told to execute the upgrade.

We are a reseller and erwin Data Modeler is one of the products that we provide to our clients.

This product is the strongest data modeler on the market.

It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams.

The erwin Data Modeler is quite complex to use. However, if you are using the desktop version then you can use a small subset of the features and still get along very well. In this regard, it is similar to Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word.

We have been working with the erwin Data Modeler for between two and three years.

erwin DM is very robust.

We are satisfied with the scalability.

The technical support is satisfactory.

Price-wise, erwin Data Modeler is okay. You can purchase a single license and it is not very expensive.

The erwin data model is a very good product. It has more than 20 years of history and has improved since it was acquired by erwin a few years ago. It was originally a desktop application and since erwin acquired it, it has been converted into a web application. They have been working hard to improve it and it is difficult to say what can be done to improve it further.

Overall, it has been quite good.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use it for our conceptual business-data model, for logical data modeling, and to generate physical database schemas. We also create dimensional modeling models.

One of the ways Data Modeler has benefited our company is that it gives us the ability to engage with the business alongside IT, because it's friendly. It has friendly views that we can use when we meet with them. They can follow them and understand them. That increases the quality and accuracy of our IT solutions.

The solution's ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources helps cut development time. We generate all the DDL for our hub through a modeling exercise and generate the alter statements and maintenance through the erwin modeling tool. I would estimate that reduces development time by 30 to 40 percent because it's so accurate. We don't have to go back in. It takes care of the naming standards and the data types. And because we use OData, we generate our service calls off of those schemas too. So that's also more accurate because it uses what we've created from the model all the way through to a service call with OData.

I find the logical data modeling very useful because we're building out a lot of our integration architecture. The logical is specific to my role, since I do conceptual/logical, but I partner with a team that does the physical. And we absolutely see value in the physical, because we deploy databases for some of those solutions.

I would rate erwin's visual data models very highly for helping to overcome data source complexity. We have divided our data into subject areas for the company, and we do a logical data model for every one of those subject areas. We work directly with business data stewards. Because the logical and the conceptual are so easy to look at, the business side can be very engaged and collaborate on those. That adds a lot of value because they're then governing the solutions that we implement in our architecture.

We definitely use the solution's ability to compare and synchronize data sources with data models. We have a data hub that we've built to integrate our data. We're able to look at the data model from the source system, the abstracted model we do for the hub, and we can use erwin to reverse-engineer a model and compare them. We also use these abilities for the lifecycle of the hub. If we make a change, we can run a comparison report and file it with the release notes.

I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else. And that should work in an intuitive way which doesn't require so much of my time or my exporting things to a spreadsheet to make the reporting work.

I've used the erwin Data Modeling tool since about 1990. I work more with the Standard Edition, 64-bit.

It's stable. This specific tool has been around a long time and it has matured. We don't encounter many defects and, when we do, a ticket is typically taken care of within a couple of days.

We're using standalone versions, so we don't need to scale much. In the Workgroup Edition we've got it on a server and we have concurrent licensing, and we've had no issues with performance. It can definitely handle multiple users when we need it to.

At any time we have six to 10 people using the Workgroup Edition. They are logical data modelers and DBAs.

We've already increased the number of people using it and we've likely topped-out for a while, but we did double it each year over the past three years. We added more licenses and more people during that time. It has probably evolved as far as it's going to for our company because we don't have more people in those roles. We've met our objectives in terms of how much we need.

I would rate erwin's technical support at seven out of 10. One of the reasons is that it's inconsistent. Sometimes we get responses quickly, and sometimes it takes a couple of days. But it's mostly good. It's online, so that's helpful. But we've had to follow up on tickets that we just weren't hearing a status on from them.

They publish good forums so you can see if somebody else is having a given problem and that's helpful. That way you know it's not just you.

We did not have a previous solution.

I've brought this tool into four different companies, when I came to each as a data architect. So I was always involved early on in establishing the tool and the usage guidelines. The setup process is pretty straightforward, and it has improved over the years.

To install or make updates takes an hour, maybe.

A lot of the implementation strategy for Data Modeler in my current company was the starting of a data governance and data architecture program. Three years ago, those concepts were brand-new to this company. We got the tool as part of the new program.

For deployment and maintenance of the solution we need one to two people. Once it's installed, it's very low maintenance.

We did it ourselves, because we have experience.

We're very happy with the return on investment. It has probably exceeded the expectations of some, just because the program is new and they hadn't seen tools before. So everyone is really happy with it.

erwin's automation of reusable design rules and standards, especially compared to those of basic drawing tools, has been part of our high ROI. We're using a tool that we keep building upon, and we are also able to report on it and generate code from it. So it has drastically improved what was a manual process for doing those same things. That's one of the main reasons we got it.

We pay maintenance on a yearly basis, and it's a low cost. There are no additional costs or transactional fees.

The accuracy and speed of the solution in transforming complex designs into well-aligned data sources make the cost of the tool worth it.

We looked at a couple of solutions. Embarcadero was one of them.

erwin can definitely handle more DBMSs and formats. It's not just SQL. It has a long list of interfaces with Oracle and SQL Server and XSD formats. That's a very rich set of interfaces. It also does both reverse- and forward-engineering well, through a physical and logical data model. And one of the other things is that it has dimensional modeling. We wanted to use it for our data warehouse and BI, and I don't believe Embarcadero had that capability at the time. Most tools don't have all of that, so erwin was more complete. erwin also has several choices for notation and we specifically wanted to use IDEF notation. erwin is very strong in that.

The con for erwin is the reporting, compared to other tools. The interface and reporting could be improved.

My advice would depend on how you're going to be using it. I would definitely advise that, at a minimum, you maintain logical and physical views of the data. That's one of the strengths of the tool. Also, while this might sound like a minor thing, it's important to create standard templates — Erwin is good at that — and you can customize them. You can create a standard template so that your models have the same look and feel. And then, anyone using the tool is using the same font and the same general layout. erwin's very good at helping enforce that. You should do that early on so that you don't have to redo anything later to make things look more cohesive.

Another feature of erwin is that it can help you enforce your naming standards. It has little modules that you can set up and, as you're building the data model, it's ensuring that they conform to the naming standards that you've developed. I think that's something that some people don't realize is there and don't take advantage of.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using this solution faces in two directions. One is the ability to engage the business to participate in the modeling. The second is that the forward-engineering and automation of the technical solution make it more seamless all the way through. We can meet with the business, we can model, and then we can generate a solution in a database, or a service, and this tool is our primary way for interacting with those roles, and producing the actual output. It's made things more seamless.