erwin Data Modeler Reviews

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 use the product for data modeling. 

The solution is good for organizing the data and the scripting part is very powerful. It's easy to create technical scripts for models. 

The solution's reporting side needs to be improved. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution breaks down sometimes. 

I think the solution's cloud version is better because things become slower when the model grows bigger. 

The product's technical support is fast. 

Though the solution is not cheap, it's worth the money. 

I would rate the product a seven-point five out of ten. 

We used this solution to upload and document our database models from the legacy systems.

The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface.

I think the interface sometimes looks old-fashioned when compared to other solutions, so maybe that can be improved. 

Also, I would like the solution to be more user-friendly to deploy.

After those initial problems, the solution became stable.

The solution only works with one server and one database, so I don't think it's scalable enough.

The solution has a good support center. They provide responses quickly, in about a day. 

The solution was a little hard to set up. We had to request help from our provider because we had some technical problems with getting the solution to work. There were some problems with configuration, and it took about three months to get the solution working.

My advice to those considering this solution would be that they should first evaluate what they need. I suggest they maybe do a POC to evaluate their use cases and then work at finding a solution, and run all the necessary tests before starting to work with the solution.

I would rate this solution as a seven out of ten.

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.

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.