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Steve2106
Posting Yak Master
183 Posts |
 Posted - 2013-09-03 : 10:54:12
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| Hi There,Can anyone suggest a good ER Diagramer or Data Modeler.I need to show a graphical picture of a database and would like to use a tool to create the table and relationship graphics.Thanks for your help.all the best.Steve |
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James K
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3873 Posts |
Posted - 2013-09-03 : 11:16:28
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| SQL Server has a built in tool for generating diagrams.Another option would be Microsoft Visio, from the Office Suite.There are commercially available - Embarcadero, ERWin etc. I haven't used Embarcadero. I have used ERWin a little bit, but was not very impressed. But that is probably because of my personal philosophy of avoiding third party tools if at all possible. Each of those have trial versions.My recommendation would be to try the built-in tool to see if that gives you what you want. Easy, painless, and free. |
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Steve2106
Posting Yak Master
183 Posts |
Posted - 2013-09-03 : 11:35:38
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| Hi James,Thanks for the info.I have visio so i'll take a look.Best Regards,Steve |
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lazerath
Constraint Violating Yak Guru
343 Posts |
Posted - 2013-09-03 : 15:56:19
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| I echo most of what James has to say, although I want to add that there are varying degrees of functionality in each of these toolsets. If you are only looking to produce a physical data model, the built in diagram tool or visio works fine. I personally prefer Visio as it gives me better control on how it all looks and I can document meta data about the ERD by including headers, footers, labels and notes. Regarding ERWIN/Embarcadero, they both offer a few advanced features you may be interested in -- especially when looking at tools to standardize in for enterprise use. To preface, I have only used ERWIN but I have had discussions with other data architects and understand both to have similar capabilities. I do find ERWIN to be clunky and dated, however it allows you to forward engineer databases (script objects directly from your ERWIN models), offers a built in data dictionary that you can define your attributes across your enterprise and then drag into models (with definitions, datatypes, NULLability etc...), and templates that can be used to quickly create conceptual, logical, and physical data models with associated data dictionaries. Although Visio can be used to reverse engineer a database into a model, ERWIN/Embarcadero are tools that you BEGIN your data modeling efforts in and produce database changes as output. |
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ER Diagram