IDERA ER/Studio Reviews

The ability to define a set of domain definitions and group them in folders is a valuable feature. There is also a Macro (VB script) feature that allows you to automate many features that can save a lot of time.

Although the tool allows for many different options as far as the what can be displayed on the model, it would be nice if they allowed for entity objects (attributes, indexes, keys, etc.) as well as the textual definition of the object. The current design only allows one or the other. I like to have a little verbiage on each entity included in the model that describes it purpose, this is allowed in the tool but you can't show both the entity structure and the text at the same time without creating a separate text object and placing the text in it.

I've been personally using this product for 9 Years.

Deployment can be complicated with their licensing model. I typically have to call tech support to get the correct files and licensing all straightened out.

The repository which is used to store the models can slow down when multiple models are added. This has improved with later releases but it is still slow at times.

Customer service is very good but they're a west coast company and we're on the east coast and I have to wait until later in the morning before I can talk to a support person.

Technical support is typically very good.

I had prior experience with Sybase's Power Designer tool at a former employer. When I came to this company they had other Embarcadero tools and were interested in using a single vendor for SQL Server development.

Installation of the product itself is straight forward although the licensing process is awkward and confusing at best. If you have a workstation license that's not to bad, but we have a WS and 2 different concurrent licenses, which requires a license server set up and getting all the proper installations products requires (me anyway) to contact the support to get the correct files and the correct licensing information.

If you have a repository setup that increases the process even more.

I'm the administrator for our ER/Studio setup for our IT department, we have 5 or so actual users of the tool.

Fairly expensive tool and licensing setup is cumbersome.

Sybase Power Designer

It's a great tool for modeling and I'm generally very happy with its features.

I have experience working with various data architecture tools, and ER/Studio is one of them that I use in this capacity. We use it either to help an organization understand what data it has got or to design a database.

It does the job. However, it doesn't work as well as other solutions.

What needs the most improvement are semantic lineage and usability.

I began working with IDERA ER/Studio approximately eight years ago, and have about three years of experience with it.

I have not been in contact with technical support.

I have experience working with SAP PowerDesigner and erwin.

It is on par with erwin, although I think that I prefer erwin. It is nowhere close to SAP PowerDesigner.

To this point, I've only set up trial versions, and I've not set up or installed it for an enterprise.

However, I'm probably going to be doing that in the next two, three weeks.

The price of this product is okay.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is to understand what your requirements are of the system, of whatever tool you're going to select. There are loads of people and organizations that have bought this product and used it, and that's dependent upon their requirements, their needs.

Plenty of others have bought SAP PowerDesigner. Personally, and I'm self-employed, or a freelance contractor, I invested more money and decided on SAP Power Designer.

Overall, I don't like any of the features and I think that it's a poor system.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

• Running macros on logical and physical models
• Compare and Merge

I am able to create (and publish) logical data models, apply naming standards using macro, generate the physical models and DDL. This makes the development process consistent and clean, improves communication and quality.

Product registration always seemed difficult and time consuming.

I have been a user of ER/Studio for at least ten years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

I've not had to use it in a while.

I've not had to use it in a while.

I used ErWin long time ago but ER/Studio was more likable at the time.

Product registration always seemed difficult and time consuming.

We did it in-house.

ER/Studio is a must to have for data modelers.

Reverse and Forward Engineering are very important. The former provides a facility to generate the overall design from an existing database. The latter allows the user to 'round-trip' changes from the model to a database so as you make changes these result in actual physical changes to the database structure.

It allows for maintaining a data dictionary, to enforce naming standards, and has a built-in macro facility to make it easier to do complicated, repetitive tasks quickly and easily.

The print facility is a little lacking. It can be trying at times to get that perfect ERD printed on a plotter.

I started using ER/Studio in 2003 - so about 12 years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Very good. They're pretty easy to work with.

Excellent. Over the years as I've had problems with their products I always get the same employee - a great guy who knows the product.

I've used them all (I think). CA's ERWin is probably the nearest competitor. ERWin works OK, but at that time was $4,500 a seat vs. $1,800.00. It was no contest.

It's very easy to get started. Anyone who can install a software product to a laptop or PC can install ER/Studio.

It was done in-house.

We haven't calculated the ROI.

There are only a few companies providing enterprise grade products in this area and Embarcadero is one of three. I think it's the best due to pricing and good overall support. It has the main features needed for this kind of work and is often seen as a leader.

Reverse engineering existing databases. I use the reverse engineering features to map existing databases to understand their structure and make improvements.

One example is the use of the product to make extracts and split databases, and we were selling parts of the company to other regions of other companies. It made the process more efficient and faster and less costly.

I don't have any specific ideas about how to improve the product. I always have the upgrades and every upgrade comes with some improvements and it's good.

I've used both products for over 10 years probably between 10 and 14 years, I don't remember the exact number.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

10/10.

10/10.

The previous standard was Your Studio by CA, and I used that until I discovered the alternatives and immediately worked with the standards committee to include it and the standards for the company. I chose this product because it's ease-of-use an excellent support.

Initial set up was pretty straightforward, and it looks for database connections that are already configured on your machine and automatically sets them up once it's installed great feature.

I implemented just my own copy I didn't do it large-scale implementation. Other people within the company use it but it's independent for each user to set their own environment up I didn't have any problems or don't have a particular recommendations for other companies it's pretty straightforward.

The initial base price is a little bit high, and my recommendation is that once you've licensed the base, to keep the maintenance renewed because that's a much more reasonable annual cost.

My advice would be to use the Technical Support they're very good if you've got questions they're always there to help.

We use it for data modeling. 

We have gone from having no diagrams to 50 submodels that we have been able to share with team members and even with our clients.

The modeling part of the tool. We use the solution to create data models which describe our company's data architecture. It is a mix of design upfront when we get changes. We also use the data models after we've implemented changes.

It does help in regards to redundancy with standardization across models.

The solution could be sped up, as it is a little slow (e.g., when it's doing its database compare). 

The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel. 

It is stable.

It seems scalable. I have had no issues. The solution doesn't differ much whether we are dealing with a small database or a large one.

The technical support has been fine. I have only used them for licensing issues.

I switched from erwin to ER/Studio. I've also used Oracle Designer, K Studio and Quest Toad.

The initial setup was easy. I have used data modeling tools for the past 20 years, so it was easy to move from other tools to this one. It is an easy data modeling tool to use.

We have two users at my office who are DBAs, myself included. This solution takes up 10 percent of our roles for deployment and maintenance.

Our deployment time depends on the size of the project.

We did the implementation ourselves.

Our implementation strategy was to generate SQL out of the tools, so I could have scripts, which we could then deploy to other environments.

At my previous company using ER/Studio, a database compare took four hours before using the product and 15 minutes after using the product.

Pricing is expensive and on the higher-end.

We also looked at K Studio, Quest Designer, and SAP PowerDesigner. Until we switched over to ER/Studio, we were still working with erwin.

You will save time, switching from whatever product you're using.

It's the best data modeling tool out there. It's fast. It can do what I need it to do.

We connected to Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server (as data sources) to this solution.

I have plans to expand the use of the built-in tool functionality. However, I haven't had the time.

• Centralised Repository where all the models are stored
• TeamServer (Portal) which gives access to the models (read only) through a web browser
• Entity Llinking Ability across data models
• Reuse of objects within workspace on multiple diagrams

The organisation is a huge enterprise spread across various countries, and use ER Studio as a centralised documentation of systems/application architecture repository. This has helped the new application development team in cross-verifying, and understanding, the current setup, proposing and architecting new solutions for the organisation. Since the models are stored in a centralised repository, the process of review/refinement are handled by teams all over the world, who can now collaborate and build a common solution.

• Reusability of objects across multiple workspaces is a feature that would help in building a single enterprise model using linked up workspaces
• Copy/Paste of diagrams to create copies between workspaces would be a handy feature to have

I've used it for over two years.

There have been no issues encountered.

There have been no issues encountered.

We are fully satisfied.

We are fully satisfied.

We did use other tools, and we switched because this solution offered us the following -

1. Stability
2. A centralised repository
3. Provision for offline availbility using TeamServer
4. Entity linking accross modules

As a fresh implementation the setup was straightforward, and clear documentations helped when we were setting up the environment.

We take care off all maintenance/upgrades of the toolset in-house.

.Purchase licenses only for the functionalities which the organisation will use.

Make effective use of Entity Reusability for an enterprise level usage.