DbSchema vs. SAP PowerDesigner

Well suited to a team working directly in the physical modeling space.

Incentivized

SAP PowerDesigner allows our team of data modelers to work and collaborate from a single repository and single data dictionary. This helps enforce consistency as data elements are referenced in other objects. Prior to our use of PD, we might have an element named "ppt" in one table, "participant" in another table and "part" in a third table. By forcing everything to be used from the data dictionary, we avoid these situations because everyone has to go to the dictionary. And we are able to easily do peer reviews on models before they are released because we are collaborating through the use of the repository.

Incentivized

• Many database platforms supported
• Direct database integration - option to have model actions reflected immediately in database.
• Test data generation with Groovy scripting for control over specific profiles

Incentivized

• Impact Analysis
• The domain structure helps you to handle different data types to unify.
• Moving between from conceptual model to logical model and from logical model to physical model is so easy.
• It also excels at implementation of database vendor-specific physical options.
• The repository structure helps you to use in multi developer and architect based organizations by the check in and check out mechanism.
• It also has a fully configurable naming convention implementation.
• Coloring is simple with format copying and pasting option.

Incentivized

• Logical data model integration is weak. Need way to update existing models with changes
• Conceptual data modeling is missing

Incentivized

• It took some time to figure out how to leverage the power of the repository. Some better examples in the documentation would have been helpful.

Incentivized

DbSchema does a number of things very well, but is not as full featured as many customers will want

Incentivized

We did have to reach out to support to learn how to properly utilize the repository feature and share the data model across many developers. Support was able to help us get this set up correctly. The downside was it took us several weeks before we gave up and contacted support. We should have done that earlier. I would say, however, the documentation wasn't clear on how to do this. So support was a great big help!

Incentivized

Some of the other Tools are no longer supported, and DbSchema is much less expensive than most of them.

Incentivized

The version of ErWin we had didn't support the repository for document sharing and data dictionary sharing. Our version of PD does so we were able to leverage that and have a central repository that is shared among the team members. That really helped to give us consistency across our databases. PD is easy to use, but getting the repository set up properly was a little tricky.

Incentivized

• DbSchema is very inexpensive, and functional, so easy to get a team started

Incentivized

• Standardization of models
• Impact Analysis
• Graphical User Interface
• Ease of deployment

Incentivized