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Third Eye View, by Rajan Chandras
Rajan Chandras is a consultant with a global IT consulting, systems integration and outsourcing firm. Write him at rchandras@gmail.com. See More by Rajan Chandras The Resurgence of Data Modeling: Part I
CA, Embarcadero and Sybase have all recently released significant upgrades of their data modeling tools. The good news is that all three products surpass previous limitations and step up to the challenges of enterprise architecture and information governance. For IT shops, the question is: which tool works best for you? Data modeling is a niche discipline and a small software market with consistent if unspectacular growth -- Forrester Research puts the current market (including sales and support) at about $165 million, growing to about $290 million over the next four years. But what this market lacks in terms of size it more than makes up in terms of business impact; data modeling is at the heart of every custom application development, data integration and data warehousing effort. In a recent study, Forrester identifies six data modeling tools that it finds noteworthy. In alphabetical order, these are:
But the options don't stop there: for example, there's the erstwhile popular Popkin System Architect (now part of the IBM Telelogic line of products, overshadowed by IBM InfoSphere Data Architect); two products from Oracle: Oracle Designer (long on existence but short on adoption) and the forthcoming Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeling; Sparx Enterprise Architect (a dark horse that seems to be picking up speed); FabForce DBDesigner (for open source fans) and, to a very limited extent, Microsoft Visio (useful for beginners). Historically, data modeling tools have evolved in two ways. Tools such as CA ERwin -- a 20-year stalwart and arguably the most popular data modeling tool of all time -- have evolved from Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) concepts and have focused primarily on data modeling, whereas tools like Sybase PowerDesigner and Sparx EA offer data modeling capabilities as part of a wider information modeling/design or Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) toolset, which might include process modeling, object modeling, development/testing etc. The question is, how does this impact you, and how do you choose the best data modeling tool for your organization? I'll provide some guidance in my next post.  This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers. Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service. Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.
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