Embarcadero ER/Studio Eases Database Development

The tool provides extensive data-analysis, modeling and change-management aspects for any data-driven application. It also supports multiple versions of Oracle SQL Server, IBM DB2, Teradata and many other enterprise platforms, including MySQL.

The newest ER/Studio also helps developers keep up with optimizing or migrating database systems to accommodate the ever-changing data in corporate applications.

ER/Studio allows entity diagrams to be created from scratch or by reverse-engineering existing databases. The product scans databases and helps developers analyze patterns of redundancies in database applications by extracting metadata and making them accessible through diagrams.

At installation, ER/Studio uses IDEF1X as its default notation. The product also offers three other notations, including a number of features to configure naming conventions and different display methods for objects.

The reverse-engineering wizard provides a direct connection to multiple databases. The wizard has a list of database objects that can be ported into a logical and physical diagram. Objects that can be reverse-engineered include system tables and views, user-defined tables, stored procedures and functions. The wizard can also determine referential integrity when it is not explicitly declared in a database.

Databases that have trigger-based logic can be reverse-engineered to some extent as well. CRN Test Center engineers were able to reverse-engineer all the objects in Microsoft's SQL Server Northwind with no problems. The engineers also added triggers and stored procedures easily.

ER/Studio does not override foreign key constraints that have been explicitly declared. Instead, it highlights foreign keys and designates them by placing an FK symbol next to them. There are a number of other symbols that also make it easy to understand and follow the diagrams.

New to version 6 is a way to dynamically lay out multiple views of artifacts in realtime. ER/Studio contains an auto-layout algorithm that arranges all the objects in seven ways. Some of the arrangements make it easy for developers to navigate through various table hierarchies.

The Tree Layout, for instance, displays all of the tables in a parent-child structure and arranges all the stored procedures in the middle. A dialog box will alert the developers that changing the layout is "not undoable." The alert is simply to make users feel comfortable using this feature.

ER/Studio divides the elements that are captured from a database into a logical and physical model. The logical model links to all of the entities and their properties but not to the actual vendor-specific metadata. That model displays a platform-independent view of entities that is used to develop multiple physical models.

Test Center engineers found ER/Studio an excellent staging model to forward-engineer applications from one RDBMS to another. By right-clicking on an entity, users can quickly create submodels and views but not triggers and procedures, which can only be created in the physical model and later ported into another database. Developers can view or edit triggers by selecting the relationship line in the logical model, using the Relationship Editor. The logical model also separates attribute keys, views and indexes.

By using the logical model, developers can view high-level properties that are associated with a table, such as attributes, relationships and constraints. The current version does not yet support a way to separate code logic into platform-independent views.

ER/Studio is flexible in how it differentiates objects using colors. Both the logical and physical models have separate color schemes and can be changed easily. In fact, each object can be set with a different color in either model, including the fonts used to describe each attribute.

Version 6 now has unique views of table properties that conform to a specific vendor implementation. When selecting physical properties of a SQL Server 2000 table, for instance, developers will be able to work on the DDL scripts as if they were in SQL Server's native environment. Database administrators and developers will absolutely love this feature, as it provides them with a familiar environment and internal code.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>EMBARCADERO TECHNOLOGIES ER/STUDIO
PRICE: $2,995
MARGIN: 10 to 15 percent
WARRANTY: 1 year
DISTRIBUTORS: Direct from vendor
TECH RATING:

CHANNEL RATING:

CHANNEL OVERVIEW: San Francisco-based Embarcadero Technologies founded its channel program two years ago, and works with most partners on a referral basis. Margins vary based on the partner's particular role in the sale. The vendor also works with some partners on a fulfillment basis. Embarcadero provides limited sales and marketing resources on its solution provider Web site, and offers basic sales

training.

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.