Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Reviews

• Teamwork support
• Price policy
• Support of many modelling languages
• Documentation generation incorporation

From the island of non managed analysis and design information to shared repositories with templates. It has helped us with real MDA and code generation directly into Visual Studio.

• A service over repository is more then needed. At least a read only service for JSON or SOAP endpoints
• To be able access models or element from custom apps or scripts on the server side
• The web interface which can show project tree with the model should be better

We've been using it for at least eight years, since v7.

We've had no deployment issues.

MS Office integration works only with local .eap repository files, not with our Postgres repository. Half a year ago they promised to fix this bug, but still no improvement.

We've had no issues scaling it to our needs.

It's sufficient.

It's sufficient.

Rational - no DB repository and it needed to be merged among the team members as XML files via external versioning system. Documentation, requirements, development all needed to be bought as separate tools which was too expensive. It crashes when a project (repo in files) is really big. There's no possibility to merge in real time and this can last hours, and often crashes.

It was straightforward.

We did it in-house.

It's sufficient, nothing to change with the pricing.

In terms of product features, I'm very happy with the support for UML 2 diagrams, Archimate, TOGAF and the collaboration capability using a RDBMS back-end. Because EA supports multiple models, the whole architecture team can collaborate using the same tool and develop our models from requirements to deployment on a shared repository.

The user interface could be more intuitive and support for a Mac, iOS or at least a browser version would be very welcomed.

I've been using Sparx EA for the last five years.

I did not take part of the deployment but I am also not aware of any significant challenges.

I've had some issues when using a NFS backed but it was on an older version of the product.

We've had no issues scaling it, but I need to caveat that I've only experienced working with teams of up to 10 colleagues.

I've never had the need to contact them directly.

I've never had the need to contact them directly.

I've used MS Visio before, but the tools are not really comparable.

I did not take part of the deployment but I am also not aware of any significant challenges

The deployment and implementation was done by internal IT.

It's hard to calculate the ROI on a product that is used within a function that is a cost center, but it's fairly easy to acknowledge that EA has paid itsef many times over in terms of hours saved for the team.

The setup consists of a team license hosted on a network share and a RDBMS back-end. EA is installed locally on the desktops of the users.

It's a very decent product, but if all you are required to do is produce "box diagrams" then Sparx EA will be overkill.

In terms of product features, I'm very happy with the support for UML 2 diagrams, Archimate, TOGAF and the collaboration capability using a RDBMS back-end. Because EA supports multiple models, the whole architecture team can collaborate using the same tool and develop our models from requirements to deployment on a shared repository.

The user interface could be more intuitive and support for a Mac, iOS or at least a browser version would be very welcomed.

I've been using Sparx EA for the last four years.

No - Caveat: I did not take part of the deployment but I am also not aware of any significant challenges.

Yes. I've had some issues when using a NFS backed but it was on an older version of the product.

Availability - No, but I should caveat that I've only experienced working with teams of up to 10 colleagues.

Never had the need to contact them directly.

Never had the need to contact them directly.

I've used MS Visio before but the tools are not really comparable.

Straightforward - Caveat: I did not take part of the deployment but I am also not aware of any significant challenges

In both cases, the deployment and implementation was done by internal IT.

It's hard to calculate ROI on a product that is used within a function that is a cost center but it's fairly easy to acknowledge that EA has paid itsef many times over in terms of hours saved for the team.

The setup consists of a team license hosted on a network share and a RDBMS back-end. EA is installed locally on the desktops of the users.

It's a very decent product, but if all you are required to do is produce "box diagrams" then Sparx EA will be overkill.

I've used it in six organisations over 10 years.

• Ability to use a single shared repository and defined languages, using both ArchiMate as the modelling language and the business language based on the repository contents. 
• It’s easy to deploy in a small workgroup.

• Ability to either offline with replication, documentation, HTML reporting
• The strength of the modelling and analysis tools. 

• Documentation generation needs significant improvement.
• More rigorous support of the ArchiMate rules would be a great improvement.

I use this enterprise solution to trace business needs, analyze information, and for implementation in an international government environment.

Sparx System Enterprise Architect has improved the communication aspect between our architects.

I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs.

• It should be made Windows compatible. 
• It should have a more appealing UI with zoom in and zoom out features. 
• It needs improvement on the communication part to stakeholders.

Ability to model and create view under same roof. The ribbon style editor coupled with capability to manage requirements, design and delivery in the same application simplified my life tremendously.

All requirements management is now moved to EA.

The templates for documentation should be enhanced to include complex documents such as template RFP, or Non functional requirements template. Currently, eixsting template documents are based on diagrams and needs to be combined and customized.

1 year

Excellent.

I was previously using Microsoft Visio and PowerPoint for creating visual models.

Very easy.

The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high. 

Easy and intuitive way of creating diagrams, reverse engineering tools for Java and databases. It also provides a centralized RDBMS repository for all models with automatic element level locking.

EA is just a tool and can't help you in any way, unless proper government process is enforced. In order to set-up sustainable gov. processes you have to have clear understanding between business and IT. As we all know IT doesn't speak the business language and business is not able to keep up with IT. We have exchanged "language" for picture (diagrams) and the result was awesome. Understanding now is more clear and and straightforward. EA helped us to express our IT vision in conceptual and logical models which are easy to explain to top management. Any changes or buss requirements are modeled first and then implemented. 

EA has its weakness as well. Security model for rdbms repository is very basic. You can't restrict users or groups to certain part of models and due to this limitation sharing with external companies is possible via xmi only. Performance of remote rdbms is nightmare and the reason is that every link and every attribute is separate sequential insert/update to db. In our case speed is 10-15 inserts per second! Model with couple thousand links just take forever to upload. Workaround is to host EA and db on one citrix physical machine what comes with additional cost. Have guys from Sparx heard of "batch insert mode"? 

There is plenty room for improvements, but overall for most of the time we use basic functionality which just works.

Class diagrams, component diagrams, and sequence diagrams. In our organization, we use Sparx EA for low level architecture which connects to the enterprise architecture. We use it to document information models using class diagrams and object models, solution/domain architecture using component and sequence diagrams.

The communication amongst several parties using common language and using a repository.

1. Could have better reporting functions
2. Performance could be improved when the file based repository size increases
3. Would be nice if it takes excel inputs for creating a list of objects and maybe even relations.

We've used it for three and a half years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

Stability is sometimes an issue when it comes up with synchronization errors and does not give any specific message as to the reason behind it.

Scalability becomes an issue as long as we are working on file based repository.

Customer service has been good whenever I contacted them.

I used Rational Rose for UML modeling before this. Currently, I use Software AG's ARIS for enterprise architecture and Sparx EA for information modeling and solution architecture. Sparx does not have the depth that ARIS provides but I like the flexibility and ease of use , despite its lack of reporting and import capabilities.

It was straightforward.

In-house and independent installations usually, so far.

Currently, it is only used as one of the several tools and is still being discussed about the capacity in which we should use this tool.

It depends on the scope and the level of architecture that is intended to be done. For day-to-day modeling and solutions, it is a very good repository-based tool.