Alex Solutions vs. Dockit Metadata Manager vs. ER/Studio

If you have information systems with lots of information but need a solution that ties together the data Alex Solution is really a great tool for this. We're a large international company, so this was our case. But if you are a smaller local company with not that much data available it could be you should look for other solutions for a start.

Incentivized

Data Architect is well suited at organizations of all sizes. It is never too early or unnecessary to enforce proper modelling and design standards on data solutions, and this tool will help that greatly by providing an industry leading data modelling tool, ability to import ETL mappings for data lineage, enforcing and managing naming conventions through the naming convention tool, and publishing of data dictionaries through the report publisher. I was successfully able to build models, provide traceability, and document source to target with lineage throughout for both the business (by providing business definitions in the descriptions), and technical teams (by documenting ETL instructions in text fields) along with field level mapping (by creating "Attachments" representing data sources, tables, and fields) providing easy search capabilities using business friendly terms

Incentivized

• Easy and fast data sharing across platforms
• Single platforms solution
• Able to handle cloud and on premise

Incentivized

• ER/Studio has the ability to provide consistent field names and data types through domains, which are templates. This provides a way to have consistent naming of common fields, like CreatedBy and the data types for the fields. They also have the ability to change all the fields that use that domain to a different data type.
• ER/Studio provides the ability to create custom macros. These macros can be used to apply everything from standard fields based on domains to naming all constraints and indexes. I've also used a macro that comes with ER/Studio to spell check field and table names.
• My favorite feature is the ability to compare your data model to databases for deployments of changes, and to other data models.

Incentivized

• Alex Solutions has lots of features and you need to invest time to understand how to do best deal with the solution in your own business case
• Australian-based solution with no local support in Denmark. Not the biggest issue for us, but potentially is a place with room for improvement.
• Making it easier for users to adjust visuals and colours.

Incentivized

• ER\Studio licensing can be cumbersome and upgrading from one version to another usually takes several phone calls and emails to the licensing group to get the update installed and running.
• The repository can be slow when the model count gets larger. By large I mean 20 to 30 models.
• A nice feature that I would like to see is table comments be displayed on the model along with the attributes. Currently you have to choose between the two.

Incentivized

I can call or email support and both get quick turn around. The only issue is they are on the west coast (US) and have a west coast work schedule and I'm on the East coast.

Incentivized

I have seen companies with Alex and Collibra, and if I should choose one of these tools based on my knowledge and feedback from the users, I would definitely choose Alex Solutions. From a user perspective Alex Solutions is easier to use - it really is just more intuitive and for most users that can make the difference between using and not using the solution

Incentivized

ER/Studio is the most mature, reach in features and quality and therefore useful. Unfortunately, it lacks compatibility with AWS Redshift.

Incentivized

• It's always difficult to predict the future, but the feedback from our organization is clear. Data-driven decisions are better decisions for sure.
• No service or solution is free, but seen in the bigger picture the better decision making surely outweigh the costs of Alex Solutions
• Our organization has way more focus on data and ensuring correct data collection. This is probably the best impact we have had seen from a data manager's perspective

Incentivized

• ER/Studio has had a positive impact on my project as we can develop the data model and have a clear understanding of business needs before we continue with the development phase.

Incentivized