IDERA ER/Studio Review

• Reverse engineering physical database
• Compare and Merge utility

We have offshore developers/DBA who actively request/implement DDL changes vs. a development database. The changes are reversed-engineered into both logical and physical schemas with generated DDL for source control check-in/check-out and other environment synchronization. With both onshore and offshore development teams working 18x5 days, it is an easy way to control check-in's while also maintaining schema views.

This version does not properly generate SQL Server computed columns; future versions do this.

I've used it for eight months.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It was pretty good once the licensing phase was completed.

It's good.

I am relatively new to this company, but in previous companies I used CA ErWin and SAP PowerDesigner. ErWin is very easy to use, as is PowerDesigner. The latter also provides a free developer viewer tool. At this point, all three products seem pretty equal: I would look at the conceptual model (business process rule) capture/conversion/maintenance with dynamic links to logical/physical ER with data dictionary/MDM capabilities to possibly separate them.

Since we are just reverse-engineering existing databases, and not using it for primary design/deployment/communication, relatively low.

Review the total number of architects/DBAs who need full access and developers who need to view the model/data dictionary to determine number/types, and whether a stand-alone vs. repository version is needed.