We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and No Magic MagicDraw based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Business Process Design solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."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."
"The most valuable features are the ability to reverse engineer and do model comparison. With the reverse engineering, I can understand the databases from third-party products. With the model comparison, I can track the differences between two versions of the same database."
"What has been useful, I have been able to reverse engineer our existing data models to document explicitly referential integrity relationships, primary/foreign keys in the model, and create ERDs that are subject area-based which our clients can use when working with our databases. The reality is that our databases are not explicitly documented in the DDL with primary/foreign key relationships. You can't look at the DDL and explicitly understand the primary/foreign key relationships that exist between our tables, so the referential integrity is not easily understood. erwin has allowed me to explicitly document that and create ERDs. This has made it easier for our clients to consume our databases for their own purposes."
"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 product lets us import different types of models from various databases."
"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."
"The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"The principal feature that I liked is that the solution has a very graphic interface."
"The beauty of MagicDraw is that it has a simulation part, so you can simulate your model to validate it. The simulation allows you to bring in code off of an external code that you can write to set up the simulation and execute the code."
"Offers good standards compliance and is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is the amount of flexibility that one has to model, which is great for an individual."
"I like the traceability feature. Whoever is working with the product would be sure of the things that could be affected if they decided to affect one of the other companies. For example, let's say that an engineer starts a new project optimization problem by adjusting the thickness of metal sheets. However, the engineers only see a reduced number of affections, but when we use the requirement traceability, they can see the whole picture. That's the main aspect that we were promoting with this tool."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of No Magic MagicDraw is the simulation capabilities and interface."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to quickly build multiple layers within the organizational and business process environments, as well as in the SysML product environments, and converting to files that can be accessed by clients who do not have a system and a teamwork server access."
"No Magic has the tools and capability to model a complete enterprise and all product lines."
"erwin generally fails to successfully reverse engineer our Oracle Databases into erwin data models. The way that they are engineered on our side, the syntax is correct from an Oracle perspective, but it seems to be very difficult for erwin to interpret. What I end up doing is using Oracle Data Modeler to reverse engineer into the Oracle data model, then forward engineer the DDL into an Oracle syntax, and importing that DDL into erwin in order to successfully bring in most of the information from our physical data models. That is a bit of a challenge."
"I love the product. I love the ability to get into the code, make it automated, and make it do what I want. I would like to see them put some kind of governance over the ability to make changes to the mart tables with the API, so that instead of just using the modeler's rights to a table -- it has a separate set of rights for API access. That would give us the ability to put governance around API applications. Right now a person with erwin and Excel/VBA has the ability to make changes to models with the API if they also have rights to make changes to the model from erwin. It's a risk."
"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."
"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."
"The erwin ETL functionality has room for improvement when it comes to mapping databases with a classic entity-relationship model to a data warehouse model."
"This is a very complex product."
"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. If I add columns to a table the whole workflow could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every 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."
"The reverse engineering in Oracle Databases needs improvement, as there are issues."
"When I am working with my Mac and I right-click to copy and paste, it doesn't work."
"For the next releases, I would like to have them import requirements from other sources. They could make it very easy to do that because there are a lot requirements management tools like DOORS, D-O-O-R-S, Dynamic Object Oriented Management. A lot of folks use DOORS to create a requirement. For those requirements you allocate them to a component in the architecture and a verification method for that requirement. It would be good if we could import those into MagicDraw as components so you don't have to manually do these things."
"It would be better if the User Interface were updated. At the moment, it's a classic environment. It reminds me of the old Windows interface, for example, Windows 95. It would be better to make it more user-friendly. It would also be better if it could integrate with SAP solutions. It isn't easy to find experts in the field. It's hard to find people around the globe that have the necessary skills and expertise to manage this solution. For example, in our case, we needed someone with refrigeration knowledge that also knew how to use the tool, and that was a challenge. We also had issues relating to erasing. Sometimes, it kept it in the background and didn't erase it at all. We had to review the entire list to ensure that the item was deleted."
"There are some technical features that you have to study and do research on to be able to understand."
"The documentation for MagicDraw and the video tutorials compared to other competitors is an area for improvement."
"It's very focused on specific modern languages and it doesn't do necessarily general systems software engineering with diagrams. They should expand the diagram types for the languages."
"The cost of upgrading the product should be lower."
"The licenses are expensive compared to similar tools. At the moment, the user is open to using MagicDraw if it's 15% more than other solutions. If it were to cost any more, they wouldn't use it."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 9th in Business Process Design with 37 reviews while No Magic MagicDraw is ranked 10th in Business Process Design with 17 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while No Magic MagicDraw is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of erwin Data Modeler by Quest writes "The product lets users import different types of models, but it is expensive, and the interface must be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of No Magic MagicDraw writes "Pretty easy to use and versatile, but doesn't support code engineering and can be overly complicated at times". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, Lucidchart and MEGA HOPEX, whereas No Magic MagicDraw is most compared with Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Visio, Visual Paradigm, Lucidchart and IBM System Architect. See our No Magic MagicDraw vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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