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ER/Studio Data Architect

ER/Studio Data Architect

Overview

What is ER/Studio Data Architect?

ER/Studio is a database development and management tool from Embarcadero Technologies (acquired by Idera) in California.

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Recent Reviews
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Pricing

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Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://store.idera.com/buynow/onlinest…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting / Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $1,470.40 one-time fee per user
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Product Demos

Governing data with ER/Studio Data Architect

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Product Details

What is ER/Studio Data Architect?

ER/Studio Data Architect is a data architecture and database design software. It is compatible with multiple database platforms. The tool is used to create and manage database designs, as well as to document and reuse data assets. It aims to enable companies to create and maintain entity relationship diagrams with detailed metadata.

ER/Studio Data Architect offers several benefits, including:

  • Round-trip database support: Data architects can reverse-engineer, analyze, and optimize existing databases from diverse platforms. Such platforms include relational and NoSQL data sources.

  • Collaborate and share: Multiple users can collaborate and share data assets across modeling projects in the model repository.

  • Design a business-driven enterprise data architecture: ER/Studio Data Architect enables companies to design a data architecture that is aligned with their business needs.

  • Enforce organizational standards: The tool enforces organizational standards in data modeling throughout the organization.

  • Manage hierarchical models such as JSON, MongoDB, Google BigQuery in the same way and graphical user interface as relational models.

ER/Studio Data Architect is designed for a variety of professionals who are involved in data modeling, database design, and data management. These professionals include:

  • Data architects can use ER/Studio Data Architect to create and maintain entity relationship diagrams, as well as to document and reuse data assets.

  • Database administrators can use the tool to reverse-engineer, analyze, and optimize existing databases, ensuring optimal performance and compliance with organizational standards.

  • Data analysts can use ER/Studio Data Architect to understand and analyze data structures, relationships, and metadata across different data sources.

  • Data modelers can leverage the tool to design and maintain logical and physical data models for various database platforms.

  • Developers can use ER/Studio Data Architect to generate and change database schema scripts, ensuring consistency between the data model and the actual database.

  • Business analysts can use the tool to understand and document business requirements and data needs, facilitating better collaboration between business and information technology teams.

The top use cases of ER/Studio Data Architect are:

  • Analyze and design platform-independent logical data architecture.

  • Design and construct platform-specific physical databases.

  • Build and maintain large, complex database applications.

  • Consolidate, report, and re-use metadata across the enterprise.

  • Describe information requirements and technical design of data assets.

  • Understand and design data assets in a universal way without having to understand code.

  • Control how changes in requirements are implemented.

  • Allow data architects to support a data governance program.

The top strengths of ER/Studio Data Architect are:

  • Broad range of database platform support.

  • Enterprise-level capabilities.

  • Visual data lineage and flow modeling.

  • Full dimensional modeling for data warehousing and business intelligence.

  • Business data objects to bridge the gap between developers and data architects.

  • Agile change management, nested submodels, and universal mappings.

  • Superior compare and merge.

  • Built-in business glossary.

  • Rich macros supported by full programming language.

ER/Studio Data Architect Features

  • Supported: Builds out an enterprise data model as entity relationship diagrams (ERD)
  • Supported: Creates a data catalog to support data governance initiatives, and metadata management
  • Supported: Discovers and documents existing data assets
  • Supported: Lays the foundation for robust data governance and data management

ER/Studio Data Architect Screenshots

Screenshot of Logical data models in ER/Studio Data Architect.Screenshot of Data catalog in ER/Studio Data Architect.Screenshot of Data glossaries in ER/Studio Data Architect.

ER/Studio Data Architect Video

ER/Studio Data Architect Integrations

ER/Studio Data Architect Competitors

ER/Studio Data Architect Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish

ER/Studio Data Architect Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

ER/Studio is a database development and management tool from Embarcadero Technologies (acquired by Idera) in California.

ER/Studio Data Architect starts at $1470.4.

erwin Data Modeler, IBM InfoSphere Data Architect, and SqlDBM are common alternatives for ER/Studio Data Architect.

The most common users of ER/Studio Data Architect are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(11)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
December 10, 2018

An intuitive design interface and capabilities supporting everyone from business users to technical architects make this data modelling tool stand out in the crowd

Jody Gitchel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jody Gitchel
Senior Data Solutions Architect
Laser Spine Institute (Hospital & Health Care, 501-1000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
ER Studio Data Architect is a premiere choice tool for managing data models, data domains, and business glossaries across the organization. It's ease of use both to learn and to master make enforcing data modelling standards across the enterprise a simple task. We use ER Studio Data Architect to manage physical model naming standards (especially in sensitive and sometimes ambiguous shorthand naming conventions within hospital settings) as well as all data models within the organization. Its ability to import ETL mappings and manage data lineage is a powerful, overlooked feature that shined through where the ETL offering did not (we opted to use Data Architect over Informatica's Meta Data Management offering due to overhead and performance).
Pros and Cons
  • It is a great tool for developing, managing, and maintaining data models at both the logical and physical level (I still do whiteboard drawings for conceptual although conceptual modelling is a capability of the team edition and above I believe)
  • The naming conventions template greatly reduces physical modelling time as you can concentrate on logical naming conventions, and then publish your physical model by pushing it through the naming standards
  • The ability to interpret ETL mappings goes a great way in providing data lineage to the business. This is often overlooked in organizations in favor of immediate gratification through reporting, then having to eventually rework due to auditing or other issues that may expose where corners were cut
  • Relationships are a bit on the weaker side. Many times I found orphaned relationships that I could not get rid of, or additional columns that were automatically created during the push to the physical model that appear to be due to key constraint bugs
  • There are a lot of bugs introduced when merging keys. I tend to model 2 tables for example logically, establish the relationship, and then merge the additional key column that is automatically created when establishing the relationship. This sometimes causes downstream issues with the physical model (creating duplicate columns with _1 appended)
  • Meta-data could be improved. I find it hard to keep descriptions and other meta information clean when copying and pasting from other sources due to formatting tags being introduced on each object (font, size, color, etc.). The attachment feature comes in handy, however I am looking for the ability to cleanly document and map multiple sources to a single target while providing searchability and traceability
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Return on Investment
  • Enforced modelling standards across the organization including naming conventions
  • Provided data lineage through importing ETL mappings and documenting source definitions through attachments
  • Published global data glossaries to business users providing business terminology to tables and fields
Alternatives Considered
ER Studio Data Architect is a global leader in the data modelling space and most other solutions that have support for third party data models include support for ER Studio Data Architect file formats. Many of the features are a bit more intuitive than the competitors and several of our vendors were already using Data Architect themselves which helped solidify the choice.
June 21, 2017

ER/Studio has been my tool of choice for the last 15 years

Michael Romm | TrustRadius Reviewer
Michael Romm
Principal Data Architect
Intuit (Computer Software, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
ER/Studio is used by my team and possibly by some other teams. I use it for logical and physical modeling of databases, both OLTP and data warehouses, as well as for applying incremental changes to the databases (deployments). I also use it to maintain consistent naming standards.
Pros and Cons
  • ER/Studio is great for dividing logical and physical design. A logical model can be used with different physical platforms.
  • Studio can a useful macro capability that allows me to apply the naming standards across the model with ease and consistency.
  • ER/Studio does a very good job at comparing the model with the actual database and generating DDL scripts for production deployments.
  • ER/Studio has an excellent reporting and model publishing capabilities allowing me to produce models in the HTML format and publish them for the team as needed.
  • We recently moved to using AWS Redshift as our data warehousing platform. ER/Studio does not support Redshift.
  • ER/Studio does not support conceptual data modeling.
Likelihood to Recommend
ER/Studio is great for both logical and physical layers of database modeling. It does not support conceptual data modeling though. It should be used in both transactional and warehouse modeling. It is useful for enforcing database naming conventions, good design practices and comprehensive reporting on database models, including publishing the models for the wider team.
ER/Studio Data Architect Feature Ratings
Return on Investment
  • Increased quality of the data models.
  • Increased productivity in data modeling and database development.
  • Ability to share the models with the team.
Alternatives Considered
  • aqua, Toad Data Modeler and Visio
ER/Studio is the most mature, reach in features and quality and therefore useful. Unfortunately, it lacks compatibility with AWS Redshift.
Other Software Used
April 11, 2017

Visually manage your data models

Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have a small department, so I am the sole user of ER/Studio Data Architect. I use it to do all database schema changes throughout the department for all databases we have created. ER/Studio is able to provide us a consistent methodology from a database standards and needs perspective. I'm also able to generate data model images for the IT team to use.
Pros and Cons
  • 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.
  • ER/Studio are missing some functionality for SQL Server databases. Indexes can have WHERE statements for filtered indexes. This is not supported.
  • The Include statement of an index will start with a comma which breaks the index during deployment.
  • New versions need to have better regression testing. I've had versions where features no longer were included, like owners, which are very important in SQL Server. (This feature is in the current version thank goodness.)
  • Datatype datetime2 is not supported in domains, so custom macros need to be used to apply to fields using domains.
  • A new feature that would be great, would be to have ER/Studio generate an HTML document that creates a searchable image of the data model for team members who don't use ER/Studio. This would be very helpful for large data models.
  • New feature: Provide the ability to rollback the deployment script. If it fails, you are currently left in a half way state.
  • New feature: Provide a clean way to delete the temporary tables in the database. Right now, I have to run a SQL Script to delete all the objects left in my database.
Likelihood to Recommend
ER/Studio is great for providing data model images for teammates to use when they are not data modelers.
ER/Studio Data Architect Feature Ratings
Return on Investment
  • The business doesn't know that we use it. I'm the only one that finds it a necessity. It's a necessity because I'm a visual person. It's easier to maintain proper foreign key and primary key indexes, especially when teammates inadvertently delete them.
Alternatives Considered
ER/Studio was difficult to learn at the beginning, but that was 7 years ago. I have used it across many companies since then, and It is really easy to use. I found it much easier to learn than Erwin as well.
Other Software Used
April 08, 2016

ER Studio is the best Data Modeling tool

Praveena Amancha | TrustRadius Reviewer
Praveena Amancha
Senior Informatica Developer
Capital Group | American Funds (Investment Management, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
ER/Studio is one of the best data modeling tools available in the market. We use it in most of our projects to develop logical and physical data models. ER/Studio comes with a bunch of inbuilt macros and also we can create our own. Macros aid in maintaining consistency with naming standards across the data models, creating indexes etc. Also, ER/Studio doesn't need a lot of prior training to use the tool. The tool is very user friendly, easy to use and very efficient.
Pros
  • Creating macros.
  • Being able to merge the new DDLs to the existing database tables and make selection of only those you want to overwrite/merge/add.
  • Easy to convert from logical to physical.
Likelihood to Recommend
ER/Studio can be used for any type of scenarios, either to develop an ER model or a dimension model.
ER/Studio Data Architect Feature Ratings
Return on Investment
  • 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.
Alternatives Considered
ER/Studio is effective and serves the purpose of data modeling that we need in our project, so we chose it.
Other Software Used
October 07, 2015

ER\Studio: The Model Modeling tool

Jay Coppola | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jay Coppola
Database Architect
UConn Health (Hospital & Health Care, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use ER/Studio within our data modeling team here at UConn Health. I'm the lead data modeler and I'm responsible for the maintenance and administration of the ER\Studio application and repository. We use it for our application databases (3NF) and data warehouse database (Dimensional) designs. I've found it to be a very useful tool and makes creating the physical database as easy as a few clicks of a button. Of course there is effort in doing the analysis and creating the conceptual and logical models but writing DDL is a thing of the past with ER\Studio.
Pros and Cons
  • ER\Studio supports the concept of a domain. You can create a custom domain (data type) and give it a name and use it as the data type for attributes. I use this to define my surrogate PK and several other "standard" attributes we populate into every relation (table).
  • ER\Studio supports the coding of Macros. This is VB code that leverages their API to automate manual process. Very helpful as you could imagine. They supply a large set of pre-canned macros and are very good about helping you write your own if you need help. I have several macros that help me implement naming conventions on attributes and FK names.
  • The repository is a handy feature that allows you to save off your models to a database to be safe and also to allow for collaboration between other modelers on you team.
  • Several different licensing models allow for flexibility, usage. They support a single user workstation as well as concurrent licensing, for multiple part time users.
  • 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.
Likelihood to Recommend

It's a data modeling tool that will generate the DDL for your database, so you need to know your target database system (SQL Server Oracle, DB2).

They have single target versions and multiple target versions. The multiple target includes just about every conceivable DBMS including XML.

ER/Studio Data Architect Feature Ratings
Return on Investment
  • Using ER\Studio to create models and eventually the actual database schema allows for a picture that is understandable to the customer and saves significant time writing DDL to create the database objects (tables, indexes, relationships, constraints...)
  • A nice customer interface tool so you can create a web based interface to the metadata for a particular design.
  • The tool also supports sub-models so you can break a large project into smaller parts, I find this feature very helpful.
Alternatives Considered
  • Sybase Power Designer Data Architect and CA ERwin
My first modeling tool was Sybase's Power Designer and it was a fine tool to get the job done. When I changed companies 10 years ago I was introduced to ER\Studio and have been using that ever since. More recently I looked into CA ERwin and found it to be unintuitive but to be fair I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.
Premium Support
No
We have the basic support; not even sure premium support is available. We get good responses from their support staff and they are very helpful with righting macros for you.
Support Rating
9
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.
Bug Resolution
No
Exceptional Examples of ER/Studio Data Architect Support
When I first starting working with macros and I had a question, the support person didn't just help me she actually wrote the macro for me and I've used it as a template for several other macros.
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